life is short - so what!

So I am in the kitchen the other day feeding 5 kids and they happen to look at my laptop and start reading the no excuses blog. In the intro, I mention that "life is short". This promptly sends my 10 year old daughter (aka- chicken little) into a tizzy.  The world is ending tomorrow and will she be able to take her cell phone with her because she has only had it for a few weeks.  Yes, life is short meant to her that the sky was falling and we were all gonners.

I tried to explain to the kids what the saying meant and told them that although some days seem very long, years somehow seem to fly by.  While yesterday at Kings Island felt like an eternity, it doesn't seem that long ago when chicken little was 4 and in a Princess Fiona costume 24/7. Was she really 10 now with contacts and a cell phone? Life is short.

The kids understood the saying, but put it in a whole new context. They started a conversation of "what happens next". They all agreed they were going to Heaven and were trying to decide which body they would have.  The 10 year olds wanted to stay 10 (because they were cool), my son just wanted to be bigger and stronger so he could hit triples in baseball, a friend wanted to be a baby because she didn't remember what it was like, and my 6 year old daughter wanted to be herself without tangles in her hair. Aaahhh...the simplicity of children.

Next, the kids went on to talk about all the possibilities of life after Earth: Will they see grandparents again?  Will a neighbor in a wheelchair be able to walk? Can they eat as much candy as they want? Will Justin Bieber be there? Can they say goodbye to school and homework and chores? Of course every question was answered with a resounding YES. Life is short was starting to sound good to them, especially as the beginning of school is getting near.

I am not a "preachy" person by nature but had to post this. My kids and their friends taught me something that day - life is short, but so what? Enjoy every day we are here and start picking out what body we want have for the next life!