in which the children discuss marriage

Katy told me yesterday that she wants to marry Molly, our black lab. The boys were both at school so it was just Katy & mo, and I told her she couldn't marry a dog, and forgot about it.

This morning while David was getting his shoes on to go to school, she made the same announcement. I again told her she couldn't marry Molly because she is a dog. David had more to say on the matter. He said "She's a girl. And girls can't marry girls. Boys need to marry girls so they can have babies!" He went on to start explaining about sperm (we have a quite informative book about where babies come from that we got several years ago). We were in a hurry to get out the door, so I had to interrupt him and get a move on.

Oh yeah, I had to drive David to school because he decided that today was the day to sleep in until almost 9:00. And I let him because I was fairly sure he must be sick to sleep that late, since he never ever sleeps past 7:30 or so! Nope, he woke up right as the bus was at the stop, apparently feeling fine. I suppose maybe his body was fighting something off and if I'd woken him up he would've gotten sick. I'll tell myself that...

So we quickly drove to school without much conversation (made it with 2 minutes to spare!), then resumed the topic once David was in the school. I asked Katy why she wants to marry Molly. She said "because I want to get married!" How on earth does a 2 1/2 year old even know what getting married is, let alone want to? But that sounds like she wants to get married and just chose Molly because she was there. So that's a tiny bit less weird I suppose...?

Then she said something about getting married at the church. I told her "You get married in the temple!" Then Ryan, who had been fairly quiet thus far summed it all up for us:

"There are two reasons Katy can't marry Molly. One is that dogs aren't allowed in the temple. And the other is that girls can't marry girls, and they're both girls."

Pretty close buddy! Although, dogs not being allowed in the temple is not the exact reason Katy can't marry our pup. And I'm sure at some point in the not-distant-enough future I'll have to talk to them about same-sex marriage. But for now, I just agreed. Sounds like they have the basics down, at least!