Crisis

In the car this morining:

"We're going to go shopping this weekend, Penny, so you can help me pick out Christmas presents for Jess and Ray and Alex."

"I'm going to get Alex another hippo!" (One of Alex's two favorite toys is a squashy green hippo.)

"Sure."

"Do you think Jess would like a dinosaur?"

"I think Jess would love a dinosaur."

"And I'm going to get Ray a big soft dinosaur for Ray-Ray, too. So he can sleep with it."

"Okay."

"Mom?"

"Yes?"

"Why are there no dinosaurs anymore?"

"Um... Well, something happened that made the world colder, kind of like it was winter all the time, and the dinosaurs really needed warmer weather, so they died."

"...What happened to the baby dinosaurs?"

Oh shit how do I cover this? "Um, I don't think there were any. I mean, all the babies grew up to big dinosaurs, but it was so cold that they just didn't have any more babies." Right? Didn't I read somewhere about lizards not laying eggs if the weather is screwed up? Or the eggs not hatching, or something?

"That's sad."

"Yeah, it's kinda sad."

"I'm crying." I flipped the rearview mirror down, and sure enough, she had laid sideways onto the seat and there were fat tears rolling down her face.

"I'm sorry, sweetie. It is very sad."

Baby's first existential crisis?

By the time we'd dropped Alex off at daycare, though, she was recovering. "I'm going to make dinosaurs!"

"That's great, sweetie. You do that."