Marriage?!

For weeks, Ethan and I have been talking about marriage. It started, I think, just after Lika's wedding, which apparently made a much stronger impression on him than we thought at the time. The initial conversation was about Margot, Ethan's first love. One afternoon, after his daily visit to her house, he announced that he was going to marry her. Now that I let him cross the street by himself, he's there more and more often, and he's deeper and deeper in love. I had to crush poor Ethan by explaining that not only is Margot too old for him, but that she is already married with three (almost) grown children. He said that he would be willing to marry her anyway, but when I told him that it was against the law, that all the married people we knew were married only to each other, he seemed to understand. And while he was definitely sad and disappointed, he was also, I think, somewhat relieved. Feelings so intense can be overwhelming, and now that he gets the limits, he can enjoy Margot's company with a little less angst.

Here are the kids mauling Margot who came out with a box of Swedish Fish.

When school began, Ethan started spending a lot more time with sisters Jane and Allison, our friends who live around the corner. Allison (wavy hair) is in Ethan's kindergarten class and Jane (straight hair) is in the class down the hall. Both are on his soccer team and both play regularly after school in our booming neighborhood crew.

Here they are with Ava (pink bow).

As we were driving home from school last week--and I was, as usual, pulling teeth to get some tidbit of information about his day at school--Ethan asked: "How should I choose who(m) to marry?" I was confused by the question, but after a little prodding I learned that he was really asking, "How do I choose between Jane and Allison, when I want to marry them both?" I was stumped. Really stumped. Even God I can talk about, but this was tricky. At least he remembered he couldn't marry them both! I didn't want to belittle his feelings or discuss either girl, both of whom I like so much, and while of course no one is actually getting married, I tried to take the question as seriously as Ethan was taking it. I asked him if he had proposed to either girl, or whether either girl had proposed to him, and when he didn't seem to know for sure, the discussion kind of fizzled out... Only to return a few days later when Ethan proudly and definitively announced that he was going to marry JANE. When I asked him how he came to that decision, he explained that Allison wanted to marry the girl who sits next to her at lunch, and so obviously Jane was going to be the lucky one. It's nice when you don't have to keep struggling with a decision. I told Ethan that I was thrilled for him, but that he would have to ask Jane's parents for her hand.

So he did.

I remember the good old days when Ethan used to say that he was going to marry me!