(Written by Mark)
Adam is often pensive and reflective in the evening after he has said goodnight to his little brother and it is time to go to bed. When I go in to say goodnight to him, often I lie down on his bed with him and we have our serious conversations.
Tonight we had a long conversation. It is worth writing about, if only for our own records...but you might get a kick out of it.
It started out talking about school--which he is SO excited to begin on Tuesday. I explained to him that it is an important new chapter in his life, that he will be going to school for many years to come once it starts. He asked how many grades there are -- he already knew up to 6th grade, but then I explained that it goes clear up to 12th. He asked how old he would be then, and I told him 12th grade would start when he is 17.
He wanted to know what happens after that. I explained that smart people like him usually go to a university after that...that he would attend "university" for one year, then he would go on his mission. He asked how he would know where to go on his mission and I explained that God would tell the prophet, and the prophet would call him to serve where God said he should go.
I explained that a mission lasts two years. He wanted to know how many months that is, and when I told him 24, he was not convinced...I guess I knew the answer a little too fast. So I named the months while he counted them, and he discovered that one year is indeed 12 months, and when you go through them a second time, it is 24 months. Having settled that important question, he asked what happens next.
So I told him that after his mission he would go back to university. He wanted to know when he would get married. I told him "that depends. Getting married is not like going to school or on a mission...there is no set time for it." We dwelt on this topic at length; I explained that he would get married when he was ready and when he had found the perfect girl for him.
He wanted to know how to know who is the perfect girl for him. Actually, what he said is, "what if I pick the girl who is perfect for me, but then she changes and she isn't perfect anymore, and we can't change it [meaning that one can't get a divorce]?" I said, "that is why it is very important to choose the right girl to marry." That wasn't enough of an answer, so we continued. "When you are sixteen" I said, "you start to go out with girls and you learn everything you can about them so that you can understand them and know what kind of girl is perfect for you. For example, you might think a really pretty girl is perfect but then find out that she isn't. On the other hand, you might find a girl who is not very pretty but has a lot of faith in Jesus and a testimony of the Book of Mormon, and you might decide she is a better choice." Well, that was out of the question for Adam. No, she has to dress up pretty--like when they go out or go to visit other people in their houses. He wants both -- a girl who has faith in Jesus and a testimony of the Book of Mormon, but one who also dresses pretty too.
Next, he wanted to know when I would be a grandpa. I explained again, as I have tried on many such occasions in the past, that I will become a grandpa when he has his first child and becomes a dad. This is really a hard concept for him to grasp, but tonight I think I may have made some headway. He insisted, so again I said, "well, that depends on when you get married." He again asked how old he will be when he gets married, and I explained for at least the third time in the conversation that he will get married when he is ready and has found the perfect girl for him.
So we started working with numbers. When he gets off his mission he will be 21. He has at least another 3 years, minimum, of university and possibly more, depending on what he wants to do for work. If he wants to be a doctor, he will be in university for a total of 8 (actually, it's more than that, but I didn't want to overwhelm him); if he wants to be a lawyer like me, it would be 7 years. So sometime while he is in "university" he will get married, so starting at 21, he could possibly get married then, or at 22, 23, 24, etc. to 29--I stopped at 29. After he started getting the idea, he announced (perhaps as a hypothetical, although it was not clear) that he will get married at 23. "So then how old will you be when you become a grandpa?" he inquired again.
"Well," I said, "you will probably wait at least a year or two before you start your family, so I would guess that the earliest you would have your first baby is 25...which would make me 58 when I become a grandpa." He smiled a big smile; he was happy to finally have a definitive answer to the grandpa question.
That seemed like as good a place to stop the conversation as any. Adam had the answers he wanted for the night. So with two goodnight kisses (the first one being more of a wet zoupert--and I insisted on a better one) I rolled over to roll out of his bed, but his bed is too small and the edge arrived too quickly and I fell off the bed and banged into the nightstand, which Adam thought was just hilarious. He had a good laugh at my expense and then we said goodnight.
Thus our cute little smarty pants planned out the first quarter of his life (with some help from me) and gave some thought about what kind of girl he wants to marry, all in an evening's conversation at five years old...two days before starting kindergarten!
