Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Creation, according to my five year-old


I love having children because though most of what they say takes the form of a whine or a demand or some inane description of a TV show or video game you couldn't  care less about, they do tend to come out with wildly interesting observations sometimes. Usually these observations are a result of them not assuming something I take for granted, and have taken for granted since time immemorial since I'm about five hundred haggard years old. Like, yesterday morning, Seconda woke up and skittered over to the couch with her tousled yellow head of hair and asked, "What is blood made of?"

I started to reply something vague and impressive-sounding (I hoped) about cells and platelets, etc, but then she clarified the question:

"How did Jesus make our blood?"

Wow. This was a much more complicated inquiry. And surprising, since i can count on one hand the number of times Sec or anybody has talked about Jesus in our house. We talk about God sometimes, and I enjoy these theological conversations: its just Jesus specifically doesn't come up very often. Of course, Primo is now preparing for his first communion in a few weeks, so there's been a lot of extra religious school and mass attendance and I guess all this has got my little one thinking. 

"I don't know," i answered honestly. 

"Oh I know!" she exclaimed, "I think he takes some kind of liquid and puts red food coloring in it and then THAT becomes our blood." 

"Wow," I replied, "Interesting."

"How does Jesus make our bones?" she asked. And before I could offer one of my evasive replies, she came out with: "Oh I know! He takes a piece of cardboard and puts white paint on it and rolls it up really really tight like a taco and that makes the bones!"

What I love about this is its exactly how my five year-old would create a human being if she was charged with that responsibility. Grab some cardboard, a little water, take out the tempura paints, a few watercolor trays and blammo! you've got yourself humanity.