Awkward Moments with a 9 Year Old

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Vivian means full of life. In this case, Vivian should also mean full of questions. She always is thinking ahead. She always needs the plan. I get it. She is a shaper. So am I. We think a lot alike, but the problem is at nine, her planning priorities and mine aren't always the same. She doesn't see all the little things that need figured out before we can get to the big plan, and she has no filter about what she says. If she has a question about it, it will get asked.

The day after Tim died (it may have even begun that night) she started peppering me with a million and one questions about how things would work, what we would do, and the like. I finally had to tell her (repeatably) that I couldn't think about or answer any of those questions until after the funeral. We had to get through that first.

Since then, she still has had questions, though I don't feel bombarded with them any more. Maybe because I can think more clearly now. Maybe because some of the things she had questions about are getting answered just in the daily living of our lives. The other day in the car, however, she threw me a doozy.

"Mom, are you going to get remarried?"

Talk about not ready to think about that, let alone discuss it with my children! Talk about jumping ahead in the plan. I didn't know what to say. In fact, I am not sure what I said, but I think it was something along the lines of it being too early to think about that.

Then she says, "If you do, I won't like him."

Um, where do I go from here with this conversation? The resulting conversation was actually pretty sweet. It took a bit of talking through and clarification, but what she was trying to say was she didn't want a step dad that was like Tim. She would want someone with a completely different personality type because she wants to keep Tim's memory separate and special. She loves her daddy and doesn't want anyone to take his place.

No one ever could baby. They never could. . .