(Give this post a chance to grow. It gets much lighter, yet more human, as it goes… )
Driving home from gymnastics with Isabella (she’s 7):
Iz: Daddy, I’m going to entertain you.
Me: Really? How?
Iz: I’m going to sing!
Me (cringing): Really? Do you have to?
Iz: Yes. I will sing the songs from “Frozen.”
Me: Oh, God. No! You said “entertain.” Not terrorize.
Iz: I don’t know what that means. But, I will sing all of the songs. “Elsa! Do you want to build a snowman?” … “Let it Go! Let it Go!” … “For the first time in Forever” … “Love is an open doooooor!”
20 minutes later, after the fourth pass-through:
Me: Yay, that was great. Ok, actual radio, now? Yes?
Iz: No, one more time! “Do you want to build a snowman?”
She pauses.
Iz: Why am I singing this again?
Me: Only God knows. I guess.
….
The mood suddenly shifts and gets much deeper.
Iz: Daddy…. How does God know everything?
Me (thinking): Jesus Christ (no pun, by the way). It is the worst rush-hour for LA traffic. There’s a HumVee wrapped around a pick-up. A few bumpers have already been intimate with each other.
And, I have more than a couple opinions and questions which I don’t generally publicize. (Let’s start with Matthew 6:6. But, that’s just for starters.)
Me: I don’t know, Sweetie. I can’t do a theological analysis in traffic like this.
Iz: Then, where did Santa Claus come from?
Me: Crap, Honey. I don’t know, either.
Iz: What about the Tooth Fairy?
Me: Someone is cutting me off in traffic! Mother!
Iz: Mommy is the Tooth Fairy?
Me: Honey, No!
Iz: I knew it!
Me: No, not you, Sweetie. Um, Mommy just cut me off!
Iz: So, she’s the Tooth Fairy?!
Me: I didn’t say that.
Crap.