Happily ever after, whether you like it or not

I overheard a conversation between Anaya and her little friend Aile this week, about their two-year-old brothers.

"When I get big, I'm going to marry Sethie," Anaya declared.

"You can't," Aile countered, "because I wanted to marry Brenner, but my mommy told me you can't marry anybody in your family."

"I don't care. I'm going to marry Sethie anyway."

"You can't!" Aile was not impressed with Anaya's willingness to defy what Mommy said. "You can't marry anybody in your family!"

At this point I affirmed that Aile's mommy's assessment was accurate. "No, Anaya, you really can't marry anyone in your family."

"You'll see," Anaya assured us. "I WILL marry Sethie."

Last night I heard some murmured conversation in the living room. Words like "wedding" and "marry" were featuring prominently, so I slipped in to listen better.

"Mommy," Anaya greeted me, "when Sethie is this many years old--" she held up all ten of her fingers, splayed enthusiastically, "THEN I will take him to the church and show him where we will marry!"

"We mawwy!" Seth burst in, on board with Anaya's plan, for once.

Hey, who am I to argue? I'm really not thinking this is going to be a problem five years from now. I'll be happy if they just want to stay in the same house when she's ten.

This morning when Anaya was howling about how Sethie wanted to get under her blankie, I figured out that this could even be useful.

"Mommy, make Sethie get out from under my blankie! That's where I want to be!"

"If you are going to marry him," I pointed out brilliantly, "you're going to have to share everything with him. You'd better start practicing."

"I don't want to share everything! Give me that, Sethie!" she yanked on her blankie.

"Be careful," I cautioned. "If you aren't nice to him, he's not going to want to marry you."

"I don't care," grumbled my little lovebird. "I'll marry him anyway."