"I'm going to get married when I'm twenty."

That's what Banana informed me tonight when we were taking a homework break in favor of hitting the Golden Arches. There we are, driving along and jamming to the radio and out of the blue she asks me, "do you like being married?"

So many answers.....most of them way more complex and inappropriate for an eight year old's question.

"Of course I do." I tell her. "I love your Daddy and our family."

She mulls that over for a second and then asks, "how old do you have to be to get married?"

"Well," I hedge "I think you have to be at least eighteen to just run off and get married BUT that's pretty young too; I think it's a good idea to go to college first." She nods wisely.

"Then I'll get married when I'm twenty." she decides.

"That would probably be okay, but you won't be done with college yet, especially if you want to be a bug doctor." Are you seeing a theme to this conversation yet? I mean, naturally I don't tell her what I want to, which would be more along the lines of "over my dead body, you need to experience the world on your own and have friends and go to clubs and date and learn to cook and pay bills on your own first. You'll get your heart broken and break a few yourself, and overdraw your checkbook and buy your first brand new car and get a job and take a trip and cry over margaritas with your girlfriends and do all sorts of other stuff first." I can't say that. That's pretty heady stuff. So I stick with the basics. Like wanting to be a bug doctor.

Banana contemplates this. "Okay." she decides "Then I won't get married until I'm at least twenty four. And after I'm a doctor."

Works for me, kid. We'll work on the hard numbers later. Just stay my little girl forever.