All Growned Up

"Mommy, when am I going to be all growned up?" is A's new favorite phrase. Anytime there has been a silence of more than a few seconds, she comes out with that. And when she isn't wondering when she is going to be "all growned up," she is planning what her "all growned up" life is going to be like.

As we walk C to and from school, she discusses the pros and cons of each house on the way. "Well, that one is a pretty color, but it is too small. And that one is brown, and I don't like brown houses, but it has a tree swing and good Halloween decorations." I try to point out that she could change the color of the house and that Halloween decorations don't actually convey when one purchases a home, but she seems unconvinced and continues to use those as her primary criteria for choosing a home.

She is planning on having three kids (actually, two kids and a baby) most days, although sometimes she wants five. But after I point out that five kids translates into an awful lot of sandwiches to make in the morning, she scales it back to three again. She has decided that she and C are going to live three houses apart, so the cousins can see each other all the time. And when C dares to mention that he wants to be an astronaut, and astronaut's don't actually LIVE where we do, she glares at him and announces that he will JUST have to be something else because that RIGHT THERE will be his house and he will come for dinner every Friday.

The latest addition to her all growned up repertoire is playing wedding. Clearly, someone in her class recently went to a wedding as she knows exactly how it all works. "You sing the song while I walk down the rug. Then you announce me husband and wife and I run back down the rug and you throw birdseed. Then we dance and have cake, and I go have honey. Why do you have honey at the end of the wedding?"

Yesterday, as A was dancing with her phantom husband, she turned to me and said "Mommy, I want to dance with you now." And so, with A all dressed in white with a princess tiara on her head, we shuffled around in a circle. She looked up at me, as happy as could be, and said "I love you Mommy." And, just for an instant, I saw my little girl all growned up, a wonderful, smart and beautiful woman who was leaving me to start her own family.

"I love you too A. How about some snack?"

"OK, will you feed me like a baby?" And, just for an instant, my wonderful smart, beautiful little girl wanted to be taken care of by her mommy.