As I have mentioned before, marriage is a sensitive subject around our house. As sad as this story is (and how badly it makes me feel since it’s pretty much my fault), I do want to record it.
It all started months and months ago, when Lily first told me she wanted to marry me when she grows up. At other times since, she has also mentioned marrying Michael, or other family members. This is totally normal, and very sweet.
One time, though, when she was telling me how we were going to get married, I made a mistake.
A dreadful, horrible, terrible, no-good, very bad mistake.
I made an offhand comment about how that when she was older, she wouldn’t want to marry Mommy or Daddy. She’d probably want to marry a boy her own age, and besides, Mommy and Daddy are married to each other.
All joking aside, folks, that was a pretty thoughtless thing for me to say. Maybe some kids would let that roll right off of them, but Lily is definitely a thinker. What I MEANT was a lighthearted explanation of how marriage usually works – “haha, Lily – believe it or not, but you won’t always feel that way – you’ll want to marry a boy when your older!” What she apparently HEARD was, “Lily, you can’t marry me – Daddy and I are already married and there’s no room for you and you have to find someone else.”
I broke my poor dear’s heart, and, thus, broke my own as well.
Now we all know that when Lily is an adult, it’s pretty unlikely that she’ll still want to marry me. This will work itself out. So why did my stupid, thoughtless self have to ruin a sweet moment? I hate that I responded so carelessly (this falls into the category of things I’d rather not admit publicly).
I just wasn’t thinking.
So, now when we mention getting married when she gets older, she gets super-pouty and sad and says she doesn’t want to get married, ever. This has also expanded into not wanting to ever get a job. She has figured out that we have jobs to pay for things, like houses. If she has a job, then she’s paying for a house, and that means she’s not living with mommy and daddy. So, if you ask her what she wants to be when she grows up, she gets all upset and says, “Just Lily. I just want to be Lily when I grow up. I don’t want to be anything and I just want to live with Mommy and Daddy forever.”
Break. My. Heart. Again.
So, we can’t talk about her getting married or ever getting a job without her getting upset and even tearful. It’s so sad. She also gets upset when you talk about her getting bigger. She says she wants to be little forever, and makes you reassure her that she will be little forever. We now tell her that yes she can marry us, yes she can live with us forever, and yes she can stay little for as long as she wants to (although we have gotten her to agree to buy bigger shoes, thank goodness). We figure that all this will sort itself out later, as very few teenagers still think that their parents are marriage material.
In a positive turn of events, she may be seeing some flaws in her plan already. The other day, after saying, “I just want to be little forever!” she took a pause and thought for a moment. Then, she added, “I can still drive, right?”
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