There Was a Time Before Greta?!

Last night during dinner, Greta took some photos down from a cabinet in our dining room. They were photos of our wedding, and she recongnized them as wedding photos since she went to her very first wedding this past weekend. We talked about getting married and identified all the people in the photos.


Then Greta said, "Where am I?"
I told her, "You were not born yet."
To which Greta responded, "I was in your tummy?"
"No," I said, "You weren't there either. You weren't anywhere. There was no Greta then. Anywhere."
Greta looked up at me and said again, "So . . . I was in your tummy?"


It's a hard concept to understand if you don't understand it, right? The idea of nonexistence. She has absolutely no idea that people are brought into being at a given time and that before that time - - they just . . . aren't. It was a funny conversation but one that I had never thought of before: how to explain to a two year old the idea of conception. After being quasi-satisfied that I was not going to give her a straight answer about her whereabouts in the photos, Greta moved to her second line of inquiry asking, "Then where is Wyatt in the picture?" Oh, man.