Going to the Temple . . .

Last Saturday morning we got up early, scooped the girls out of bed and bundled them into the van, then headed to Boston and the temple. I was out warming up the car with Julia and Katharine while Lia gathered up some travel necessities and helped a very sleepy Eli out of bed. As Eli slowly opened her eyes, Lia explained to her that she needed to get out of bed because we were all going to the temple together. As the keen light of consciousness finally penetrated the thick mists of slumber, Eli became immediately excited. “We’re going to the temple!?” she cried. “Oh! I need to get my wedding tiara and my wedding gloves. We’re going to the temple for my wedding,” she explained. I suppose such confusion is naturally to one whose culturally universe consists of such syncretic mixtures as “I Love to See the Temple” with Barbie’s The Princess and the Pauper. In any event, the trip was wonderful, though the tiara and the gloves stayed home.

The older girls, by the way, sometimes display a distressingly anti-progressive view of marriage. "Well," Julia often pronounces with satisfaction at the end of a movie, "they all got their weddings."