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Such a big girl!

My baby girl completely and totally freaked me out a couple of days ago.

She had come downstairs for breakfast completely dressed, in cute pants, a shirt, a sweatshirt, and a headband that all matched. Her hair was reasonably brushed and she even had put her own socks on.

As she went to the pantry to get her favorite cereal, I said to her, "Can you stay four and a half forever?"

She looked at me with those huge green eyes and very seriously said, "No, Mommy. I want to have a baby, so I have to grow up!"

Oh. My. Goodness. What's this about have a baby? Huh?

A friend of mine who was visiting saw the look on my face and said, "Don't worry, Jess. It's a phase. She'll want to be an astronaut next year."

I was not so sure, so I went straight to the expert: my own mother.

"Mom? Did I ever want to be a mother or have babies?" I asked. I couldn't even remember having a doll, to be perfectly honest.

My mother didn't even have to think about it. "No. You never showed any maternal instinct," she said.

But my baby wants to be a mommy. I honestly feel uncomfortable with that. I want her to want to be a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer.

So I have to take a step back and think about what's going on here. My daughter is being brought up in an extremely loving, two-parent home. She visits her grandparents every weekend - they've been married since the dawn of time, or so it seems. She hasn't experienced discrimination - she doesn't even know it exists at her age - so the idea that any career is cut off from her is completely foreign.

And what she sees and wants to model is being a mommy.

Rather than be uncomfortable, I should be flattered. Apparently I make it look exciting enough that it's her primary reason for wanting to grow up.

So, I'm going to get over it. But I still wish my baby could stay a baby for a while longer.