Cat food too.

Aubrey has always been an observant child, and she just gets more and more observant. Which I am glad about, but it leads to difficult conversations.


Our grocery store prints coupons and ads on the back of their receipts. They also print missing person notices. One specific notice, actually. We've seen it a few times. Anyway, she reads all the fine print, and knows that the lady and little girl pictured are the same person. That she disappeared when she was almost 3. In 1983. So she plans on cutting my receipt apart and putting up this little missing person notice on the fridge, so that if we see her, we'll know it and be able to help her.

"Why did she disappear, mom?"

"Where were her parents when she disappeared?"

"Is she a burglar now?"

"The man who took her, is he going to hurt her?"

"If we find her, can she stay with us for a few days?"

"Who put the ad on the receipt?"

"Who is looking for her?"

"Can we help look for her?"

"What if she's forgotten where she lived?"

Fortunately we were able to completely avoid the possibility that this woman died (or was killed) long ago.

Also, earlier in the day, she asked what happens if a woman is pregnant but doesn't want to be pregnant. I just replied with, "That's a conversation for when you are older, honey."

And, we talked an awful lot about people who need to use food pantries. She recognized that we have a lot of money, so we should help people who don't. So we're trying to remember to buy a few items for the pantry every time we go to the store. She wants to deliver them to the pantry herself, so we'll seek out the pantry soon (we usually drop stuff off in the basket at church).

As difficult as it is to have these conversations with my 7 year old, it's incredibly rewarding, too.

And then she'll just bust out with the most random goofiness. The Simpson's episode tonight was talking about being an American, freedom, all that stuff, so she wrote me a note:

"I wish we had freedum. Cat food too."

That's a note that will be up on my fridge for years to come, I suspect.