Eagle Ears

So I'm multi-tasking the other day, shuttling the girls from point A to point B and talking to my parents on the phone. I don't call them as much as I should mainly because I only ever think of it when I'm in the truck. Anyway, I'm talking to Pops and somehow we get on the topic of global warming. I tell him that I had recently saw a news blurb with a scientist discussing how the polar ice caps reflect a tremendous amount of sunlight from earth and that if they should melt, sunlight will be absorbed rather than reflected and global warming will accelerate even more. Pops dismisses this kind of theorizing; he thinks the phenomenon is a natural cycle, but I go ahead and try to convince him that it's likely we're the culprits. The girls and I pull up to the driveway and I say goodbye to Pops so I can take my two monsters into the house. I jump out of the truck and open the back door to fetch Claire when Hallie looks at me pointedly and asks, "Is Earth in trouble?"

Oh crap.

"No, no. Earth is fine."

"But you just told Papa that water is going to rise and flood cities. And that it's going to get hotter."

Crap, crap, crap.

"Oh, never mind that. I was talking about something else. Earth is fine. Okay, out you go."

But from the look she gave me, I could tell I had dodged nothing. She didn't say anymore and skipped happily inside the house, but I forget too often that she is getting older and smarter and that she's more than capable of understanding and processing the content of discussions she overhears. What bothers me in this particular instance is the global warming issue concerns her generation even more than mine and definitely more than her Nana and Papa's. I'm torn between wanting to honestly share with her the future she will inherit and protecting her from things she can't do anything about. At least right now. As you can see, I went the protection route; I just don't see any use burdening her with something as large scale as climate change.

I think I'm going to take a page out from Old School and Vince Vaughn and have Hallie start applying ear muffs when I'm talking of things so serious.