Reincarnation and Other First Grade Topics

     Little Chicken has been talking about reincarnation a lot lately.  I know; what the hell?   She's six.  Six-year-old children don't talk about that, do they?   I thought that was more of a late night college dorm conversation, not something you toss out at your Mom from the pile of stuffed animals you are lounging on in your closet.  She keeps saying "I think I might be right, Mama.  I think when you die you come back as a baby."  Where she came up with this, I don't know.  We don't have many Hindu friends, she hasn't taken Comparative Religions yet, and it's not a big theme with Thomas or Elmo.  

     It's not the first time she has brought up the topic of death.  She regularly asks us what happens when you die (I don't fucking know, kid, I'm alive!) and when various people are going to die (again, no clue little one, I don't have that app).  She has tons of questions about God, heaven, and other things I just don't have good answers for.  I sort of wish I was a rock solid believer in something so I could just give her the party line for whatever that was.  Sadly for her, she has a philosophy major Mom who gives her six or seven answers to the same question.  She's screwed.

Keep playing, baby, it might be your only childhood!

     I try to analyze why she's so interested in this kind of stuff.  Is she depressed and obsessed with death and dying?  Is she paralyzed with anxiety about being left behind?  Is she a genius philosopher child?  (That's my favorite)  Is she a religious fanatic?  If so, which religion?  Not the kind of things an insomniac needs to have rolling around in her brain at 4 a.m.  Maybe next time I'll just say YES to whatever she says.  She could be the Golden Child.  You never know.