"Mom, how do elephants fly?" Air-Bear is tugging at my sleeve.
"What?" I was sure I hadn't heard that properly.
"Elephants," she insists. "How do they fly?"
"My Baby," I smile thinking of Dumbo flapping his way through the night sky. "Elephants can't fly."
She looks disappointed.
"What flies then?" she asks.
I'm not really in the mood to teach-in-the-moment. "You tell me," I suggest.
She thinks for a bit.
"Ponies!" she cries.
"Er, no, not exactly."
More disappointment.
"But my pony has wings and can fly," she is referring to the soft toy she sleeps with at night.
"I know," I say, "But real ponies can't fly."
"Then horses!" she pleads.
"No,not horses."
"Donkeys!"
"Also not. Horses and ponies and donkeys really can't fly," I'm tired. My head hurts.
Then silence. I begin to think the conversation is over.
"Mom?" her eyes are bright, like she's just discovered electricity.
"What, my love?"
"I know what can fly!" she's bursting with the delight of her convictions.
"What?" I'm expecting planes, birds and butterflies.
"Jesus!" she's super-impressed with herself. "And God!"
I don't know what to say. She sees that I have not congratulated her on her discovery.
"They fly in the sky and the clouds!" she tries to sell the idea.
"Er, no..." I'm not quite sure where to start with this one.
"Well, Mom," she has become exasperated with her obviously uneducated mother, "They do fly! Otherwise they couldn't get to Heaven."
And that was that. She didn't even stick around long enough for me to get theological on her.
Sigh.
1 comment:
It is an unwritten rule that Fernie's (past and present) may never, ever, on pain of death, try and get theological on their kids.. It gets to messy, to fast
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