the kid's side of the story

J and I haven't had any conversation about the wedding yet. We still don't talk a whole lot even when I'm around: I make a point of hanging out with him some in the mornings while Anna makes breakfast, but he's 6 and not much for sitting around chatting. I was around for an awesome conversation about him being a bit jealous of me: he has a lot of insight into his feelings, and he's good at articulating them.

Anna told him we're getting married, though. J said:

1. Make sure it's on a Daddy day so he didn't have to come, and
2. Make sure we don't tell anyone so it can just be a secret.

Anna suspected that maybe his mental image of weddings wasn't quite accurate, and there turned out to be two concerns:

• He saw how many pictures were taken at a friend's wedding last year, and for the past while he's had this insane oh-my-god-they're-stealing-my-soul horror of having his picture taken. I tried taking his picture once, and he screamed and ran away and it took a few minutes to calm him down.
• He's afraid the food might be yucky (this has come up again).

I anticipate plain grilled cheese on the reception menu. In exchange for a promise that there only has to be one photo, of the three of us, he's willing to come to the wedding now. So that's nice.

Meanwhile, this afternoon he apparently decided to play Private Wedding--there's that "private" thing again, though the thing that got him on board was explaining that the wedding is a public ceremony to stand up and tell everyone we're a family--with a stuffed bear standing in for me, Mister Potus the platypus officiating, and the full population of other stuffed animals as the Audience. Everyone had a lovely time, although it seems likely we'll have to do it again with me present: Anna says with the stuffed bear instead of me, it just wasn't the same.