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Of all the concepts that Alaina has a hard time comprehending, the one that I’m grateful she hasn’t had to deal with is the permanence of death. Since she’s been born there have been no lost pets, no deceased family members or friends. She’s been to a few wakes with her grandmother, but sees them as social gatherings and understands only that a bunch of gray-haired women are fawning over her. She misheard the first time she asked about the local graveyard and still thinks that’s where people get “married.” We don’t correct her.
Given how often animated movies seem to use it as a plot device and her penchant for asking two hundred questions an hour, conversations about what “dead” actually means happen frequently. She’s seen Frozen approximately five hundred times but I still haven’t been able to adequately answer what happened to Ana and Elsa’s parents. She knows daddy has problems with his eyes during the opening moments of UP, but accepts it as a very weird coincidence that this happens with every viewing.
Some of her other favorite movies only add to the confusion. At the end of Tangled, Eugene appears to die, but is brought back to life. Gothel stays dead. Similar things happen in Big Hero 6. Professor Callaghan doesn’t stay dead, Tadashi does. Both Snow White and Aurora seemed to be dead, but are brought out of their sleep by kisses. Her all-time favorite is Frankenweenie, about a kid that brings his dead dog back to life. It’s no wonder she doesn’t understand.
Origin of life questions are just as exhausting. I’ve had more conversations about The birds and the bees with my four-year-old than I expected to ever have. She gets that it takes magic between a man and a woman after they get married, but doesn’t understand why she has to wait until she’s thirty-five to have a boyfriend and get married.
She’s aware that babies are kept in their mommy’s bellies, but how do you explain to a four-year-old how they come out? I haven’t come across a children’s book about vaginal versus cesarean childbirth yet, but she’s been assured that she didn’t hurt mommy when she was born. Another in the long list of lies that we’ll be called to account for eventually.
We’ve been unable to come up with anything better than the explanation that she seems to have settled on herself: that babies are pooped out. Until she starts checking the toilet for a little brother or sister I’m willing to stick with that for now.
You don’t see that in any animated movies.
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This post was previously published on www.thirstydaddy.com and is republished here with permission from the author.
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Photo credit: Jeremy Barnes