rosa_acicularis: (one facepalm bibliophile1887)
rosa_acicularis ([personal profile] rosa_acicularis) wrote2008-04-01 10:44 pm
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bill was right. they really do say the darndest things.

In the middle of heated game of Old Maid (which, I'm only just now realizing, is rather brutally apropos to the subject at hand), five-year-old Chloe turns to me and says, "You know, when you're a grandma, you won't be a babysitter anymore."

I consider this for a moment, admittedly somewhat bewildered. We'd been discussing grandparents not long before, so the comment wasn't totally out of the blue, but I couldn't quite follow her logic. After all, I know for a fact that her family's backup sitter is an elderly neighbor. Eventually, I decide on a noncommittal,  "Probably not." We continue the game.

Not long after I find myself stuck with the Old Maid card yet again, I say, "It's possible, Chloe, that I might not ever be a grandma."

She smiles at me - the sort of smile I get from kids when I try to convince them that elephants sleep in trees or that the moon is made from recycled styrofoam cups. The "Oh, you silly grown up" smile. "Nuh uh," she says, the very picture of authority. "You'll be a mom, and your kid will be a mom, and then you'll be a grandmom."

"Well, that's how these things usually work," I agree. "But what if I don't become a mom?"

She thinks about this for a long moment. "You're right," she says finally. "You might die first."