Never say Never

Last night I was lying in Bella's bed with her and we're doing our usual bed time routine. We prayed, I sang her 2 lullaby's and said our good nights and I love yous....you know all that cute stuff. Then she closes her pretty eyes and begins to drift of to sleepy land. Or so I thought. Then she says, " Mommy!!!, did you know that I NEVER ( and she emphasized never ) want to go away to college! I had to laugh because it was so out of the blue and I could tell she wanted to make sure I knew this. I'm thinking...what does she know about college? I mean we had not discussed college or talked about that any time recently. Well come to find out later when I was telling Gary about her comment, he laughed too ,and then told me that he was telling her that when she was older she would eventually go off to college and that we would pack her up a suit case and send her on her little way. As a 3 year old that has got to be a frightening thought. I mean at 3 your whole world revolves around your mommy and daddy and it's just not in her comprehension that at 18 years of age she is going to be so excited at the thought of going off to college. I mean I guess it's a bit presumptuous of me to assume she would be excited at that but typically it is the norm. But for all she knows now, she is 100% convinced that she wants no part of it. She then goes on to tell me that she wants to stay with me forever because she loves me so much. As she is telling me this she is clinching onto me for dear life. The unknown is scary. But because I know and understand that she is just too young to know what she's really saying I know that college is not scary. I mean it is but not like she is thinking it is. All she probably heard was that she will live somewhere else away from us and funny as it is....that is just horrific to her. I as her mother know that when that time comes in all reality it is going to be me that will be hanging on to her for dear life and she will already have one foot out that door. At 3 she does not realize yet that with college will come certain freedoms. Freedoms that at some time between now and then, she will have an intense desire for. And this proclamation that she NEVER wants to go away to college will someday be something for me to remind her about and laugh at and probably desperately try to hold her to.

Thank God she is just 3 and I don't have to worry about this for quite sometime but it just got me to thinking about things that I fear. Is it possible GOD could be saying......No, Monica don't be afraid of that. As he laughs.