Christen Piston

I had the occasion to explain the concept of divorce to my 6-year old son last night as I was dicing up zucchini, yellow pepper and mushrooms to add to my lasagna's super awesome ricotta cheese mixture. This conversation arose as I was explaining that I was making the lasagna and baking brownies for my father because his wife passed away. Cameron gasped, "Grandma Debby DIED?" I couldn't get the words out fast enough to explain that my mom was still alive and well, "No, no babe. My dad was married to a woman named Kathy. My parents got divorced when I was 17."

"Di. Vorced?" He enunciated skeptically, "what's that mean?" I responded, "It means that two people who were married, aren't married anymore." He wrinkled his nose and pressed, "Why wouldn't the two people want to be married anymore??" I blurted out something along the lines of: "Sometimes people don't love one another anymore. Sometimes they can't get along. I don't know Cam, there are a lot of reasons I suppose."

Then Cameron proceeded to say the most adult-like thing in the most adult-like voice that I think I've ever heard him speak: "When I get a girlfriend, I think I'm just going to just marry her. Because I don't wanna have to go through it all over again, ya know? Like your cousin Caitlin, she got a boyfriend and married her boyfriend and that's what I'm gonna do."

I'm not sure what he meant by "go through it all over again," especially since he's 6 and he is lacking a little bit in the life experience department. However, he said it with such an old soul and with such conviction that I couldn't help but want to be his biggest cheerleader in that regard -- even though the common sensical me wants to remind him to "shop around," travel, go to college first, etc., etc. I also can't help but love the fact that he wants to grow up and be married (yay! Brian and I despite our moderate level of dysfunction haven't ruined the idea of marriage for him. Whew!). And, not to mention that he wants to be married to just ONE girl FOREVER. How awesome is that? It's SO awesome.

Afterward, when Brian and I were chatting about this conversation, he told me that Cameron told him earlier that he had revealed his feelings to the little girl Ella at his school that he has a crush on. Apparently Cam walked up to her and said, "I have a crush on you." At which point he smiled and then she smiled. When Brian asked him what he did after that, Cameron responded, "Uh, I went and sat back down Dad." Like, DUH. What ELSE do you do after you tell someone you have a crush on them.

I'm in love with the way this kid thinks.