The existential crisis of a third grader

Mondays are the long-ass days in our house - Noelle has Brownies and CCD  and Noah has Minecraft at the library on selected ones (I might use a Time-Turner.) (CCD is Sunday School but not on Sundays so...CCD.) It's a delicate dance of Dylan getting Noelle to her meeting location, me leaving from work, racing across the county to get there, him leaving with Noah, me staying with her and halfway through the meeting driving her over to CCD (when I don't get lazy and just decide to stay in one place.) Suffice it to say, we're all a bit tired by the time it comes to head home which naturally makes it the perfect time to hold deep conversations. 

Me: Did anything interesting happen in school today?

Noelle: No, just the usual stuff. (pause) Mommy?

Me: Yeah honey?

Noelle: Can I ask you a question?

Me (oh god, here it comes. We are NOT having The Talk in the car where I don't have diagrams and resources and all that): Sure baby girl, what's on your mind? (I am cool. I got this.)

Noelle: Mommy....what's the point of life?

Me: ........

Okay, didn't see that one coming. Deep breath. And....go!

Me: Well....I think that the point of life is to do the best we can with the time we have. (When in doubt, go Gandalf.) You know, be a good person and leave the world a better place than we found it.

Did I smugly pat myself on the back? Yes. Yes I did.

Noelle: I just don't understand the point of being here if we are all just going to die.

Smug balloon deflated.

Me: I...I don't really have an answer for you baby; no one asks to be born but here we are. The universe is made of energy and it has to go somewhere so sometimes the energy turns to life. And here we are. Life finds a way. (Okay, and "Jurassic Park", too.) (Holy crap, I'm way too tired to philosophize. Deflect! Deflect!)

Me; What brings this up?

Noelle: Oh, it was on an episode of "The Amazing World of Gumball"...

(I hate that stupid cat...fish...thing.)

Me: Ah. Did Gumball get an answer?

Noelle: Not really, everyone said something different.

Me: Yeah, there is no one answer. So what's the theme in Art this quarter?

And that, Your Honor, is how the liquor store ended up in my house.