one of sister #2’s friends died on saturday, he was 30 years old. she didn’t get the news until today and was off to the wake leaving me to wrangle with the kidlings this evening.

“mommy’s friend died,” jaycie told me after her parents left.
“i know,” i said.
“are you sad?” she asked.
“yes, it’s always sad when someone dies.”
“remember when great grammu died?” she asked.
“yes i do.” i said.
“i was sad,” she said. “but i know she’s happy in heaven with God.”
“ahhh,” max screamed and covered his ears. “none of this God talk!”

thankfully, that was enough to change the subject. while i can talk about most everything with jaycie and max, death is not one of the topics i’m comfortable discussing with them. i have a hard enough time dealing with death on my own, it’s not so easy to try to get all those thoughts and emotions out in a way that’s coherent to a six and seven year old.

instead of course we talked about violence on tv.

“mom said i cannot cannot watch Tom & Jerry,” max told me as i was flipping through the channels trying to find some Book TV to torture them with.
“why not?” i asked, stopping momentarily on a scooby doo rerun.
“because it makes me violent,” he said.
“WE CAN’T WATCH SCOOBY DOO!” jaycie shouted, covering her face.
“ok, ok,” i said, surfing on. “what’s the matter with Scooby Doo?”
“the ghosts and monsters scare me,” she said. “it gives me nightmares.”
“Beetlejuice doesn’t give you nightmares,” i said. Beetlejuice is easily one of her top five all-time favorite movies.
“well beetlejuice isn’t a cartoon, only cartoon ghosts give me nightmares.”
“of course,” i said. “that makes perfect sense.”

since we couldn’t find anything good, and since max and i were both tired of listening to jaycie’s ‘tv will eat your brain and you will not die without the tv maaaaxxxxweelll’ lecture, we shut it off and took turn reading books, where i was amazed that max new what the hell a Narwhal was.