You Just Don't Look That Young

Last night at dinner the kids were discussing everyone's age in our family. There was a little debate over how old Elizabeth is. Rachel had claimed that Lizzy was already two, but Tristan was correctly insisting that she is still one.

Tristan: Yeah, there's no way Lizzy's two yet. You can just tell. Even though you might not know exactly how old someone is, you can always tell kind of what age they might be close to, you know?

Like, Mom - if I didn't know you, I would guess you were 30. And guess what - you're 27! So, see? It would be easy for me to kind of guess about how old you are.

Me: You think I look like I'm 30? How come you wouldn't guess that I'm 20?

(in hindsight, I should never have asked that question to Tristan, of all people, who could never tell a lie to save his life, let alone to avoid hurting his mother's feelings.)

Tristan: Mom. . . Come on. You just don't look that young. There's no way you could be 20.

And here I was thinking I could still kind of fit in with high school kids if I really had to. Don't you love the blunt honesty of kids to bring you back to reality? I guess I'll have to get used to 30 being an okay age.

Tristan was not yet through with me, though. He had thought up a fun little math problem.

Tristan: Mom, I'll not tell you what age it would be weird to be and still live on this earth, but I'll give you a math problem for you to figure it out.

Me (in my head): What are you talking about? That is a very confusing sentence.

Tristan: Okay, here it is - Your age, minus 127.

Me (after thinking for a minute): Um . . . . . . . negative 100? Yeah, that would be a very weird age to be.

Tristan (laughing): Ha ha! Did it really take you that long to figure it out?

What am I going to do with this child? I have a feeling his questions will only get more challenging as he grows up.