Beautiful Woman

Last week we met a new friend, a young American girl who lives in the compound (neighborhood/slum/township) closest to us.  She is a volunteer/missionary with the Mennonite Relief Organization here.  She is very sweet and beautiful.  When she first came to our house I was trying to sing Thomas to sleep.  He heard her voice, popped up and said, “Who is that? I hear a woman’s voice!” Of course moms are not women and I quickly deduced, he did not mean me.  Apparently, it was love at first sight.

After we dropped Alison off Thomas started to fake cry.  I asked what was wrong.  He said, “Mom, I am just so sad that beautiful woman who drew an elephant on my chalkboard had to leave.  When will she come back?”  And so began the newest obsession: Alison, “that beautiful woman” or “that beautiful woman who drew an elephant on my chalkboard.”  A few days after we met Alison we had her over for wood fired pizzas (Seth recently built a wood fire oven, pictures to come…maybe.) I had the following conversation with Thomas.

“Mom what is a big number?”

“What do you mean? “

“A big number to get married.”

“Oh, you mean a good age to get married? “

“Yeah.”

“Um, how about 25?  I was 25 when I got married and your dad was 24.”

“No, 24 is good, I want to be as old as my dad.”

"When I am 24 will I be a man?"

"Um, maybe."

"Yeah, I will be a man and then David will give me the Excalibur sword. Mom, I am going to ask that beautiful woman to marry me today when she comes over to babysit me.”

Daily he asks when “that beautiful woman that I am going to marry” will come babysit him. It amazes me how intense and often mature his thoughts are.   It has to be hard to be four and have so many plans already.