She now always has one (or several) of her dolls with her - carrying it, cuddling it, walking it in the stroller, and going on pretend trips to Wal-mart with it. Just recently she has started nursing her dolls, which has been kind of funny. She likes to sit on the couch with me and nurse her doll while I nurse Henry. She takes it very seriously, making sure to do both sides with burps in between.
She has also started asking lots and lots of questions about motherhood. The other day we were sitting on the couch nursing our babies together, and she asked me why she has to wait to be a grown-up to be a mom. I gave her a few reasons (you should be married first, your body isn't ready to get pregnant yet, etc.), but she still insisted that she thinks she's ready to be a mom RIGHT NOW, because she already "totally knows how to be good at feeding babies and kids". Which is partly true. She spends several hours each day whipping up gourmet little meals with her dishes and fake food and serving them to anyone and everyone.
During this same conversation, she got kind of stressed out about what she should name her future children. She said she is planning on having seven. Her words: "I'll start with a few and then just keep getting pregnant and pregnant and pregnant!" (except she says it "pregnick"). And then she pointed out that she'll probably be really busy taking care of her kids and her husband. (I'm starting to get a better picture of how she views my life: busy+pregnant.) Anyway, she really wanted to get a head start on choosing out some names, and she said she was having a hard time. I asked what the name was of the baby she was "nursing", and she said she hadn't decided yet, but it was going to either be "Rach, Lampa, Sweetie Belle, or Belle." I have no idea where she's getting these names from. She kept asking me for help with ideas, but I told her she should probably just wait until she gets married and then she and her husband can decide together which names they like (I'm guessing Lampa might get taken off the list). She was not very happy about waiting to decide, and she kept pressing the issue with me. Later that night when she was saying her prayer, she asked that she might please be able to think of really good names for her kids. I thought that was cute, but things went a little wild after that with the name inspiration. We were doing Rachel's reading lesson, and she got to a part where she read the word "sack" and then the word "sacks". For some reason she thought that was just awesome to say "sack" and then "sacks" right in a row, and all of a sudden she had this grand idea: "Hey, Mom! I know - I can name one of my boys 'Sack-sack', and one of my boys 'Sacks-sacks'! Wait, wait, wait. No - what about this? I'll rhyme them: One of my boys will be 'Sack-sack', and one of them will be 'Sack-dack. And then, one of my girls can be Jessica and one of them can be Dessica!" I am a little concerned for my future grandchildren if Rachel doesn't find a husband with some better name ideas.
(Side note about reading lessons: I just remembered something funny that Rachel does during reading lessons. Sometimes during the lesson there will be a long list of words that she is supposed to read. Instead of just reading each word and moving on to the next one, she often feels the need to use the word in a sentence. I think she wants to show me that she knows what the word means. The funny thing is, she always comes up with really weird, random ways to use the words. Here are some real life examples from one of our lessons:
Word: sit Rachel's sentence: "Like, if you think you need to go to the bathroom you should go sit on the toilet."
Word: is Rachel's sentence: "Oh, like, 'hey, look - there is a llama standing over there in the corner of the room.'"
Word: got Rachel's sentence: "Like, my mom went to the store and got a special My Little Pony for me because it was my birthday."
Oliver used to do the exact same thing during his reading lessons. It is always entertaining to see what they come up with. It can get a little time-consuming, though, and sometimes I lose my patience and I'll snap "don't say it in a sentence!" as soon as she's done reading the word.)
Besides names, there are some other practical issues Rachel's been trying to sort out about being a mom. I can tell she's really trying to think ahead. She keeps talking about what a big family she's going to have, and I guess she got a little worried about space issues. The other day we were eating lunch and I noticed she was just sitting there with a concerned look on her face. I asked her what was wrong, and she said, "Mom, I just don't know if I'm going to be able to build a house big enough for my family." It turned out that she thought Daniel and I built our house, and she thought she was going to be in charge of building her own house when she grows up. She was asking me about getting enough wood to build it and everything. I tried to quickly clear that up by explaining that she could just do what we did and buy a house that somebody else built and just pay them money. She sounded relieved about that.
(Side note about buying houses: Lizza is very curious and pays attention to everything. She heard me explaining to Rachel that Daniel and I bought our house, rather than built it. She looked at me with a puzzled look on her face, and asked, "Mom? You bring this house home?? You buy this house at Wal-Mart????!" She thinks everything can be purchased at Wal-mart, but she was very doubtful about this one. It was so funny to see her trying to imagine out how somebody could buy a house. I think she was trying to figure out how in the world we fit it into a shopping cart.)
Rachel is already planning for other things she'll have to buy as a mom, too. I pack Henry all the time in a little front-pack that I have. I think she's heard me talk to other people about how much I like it. Yesterday she asked me where she could get "one of those pack things" for her babies when she was a mom. She actually wanted me to tell her a specific store, and she was not satisfied with vague answers. I finally told her that maybe I will buy one for her when she has her first baby and give it to her for a present. She thought that was a good idea.
She also came to me yesterday and said she had been thinking about it (I swear, this must be all she thinks about these days), and she knows her kids are going to want bikes, but she's not sure if she'll have enough money, so she was wondering if it would be okay to use some of her kids' money to buy the bikes for them. (I'm guessing she thinks this is acceptable, because we just bought her a bike using her birthday money that she got from grandparents. I wonder if she has been viewing that as us stealing her money from her. Maybe we need to clear that one up.)
It's been so funny watching Rachel, and it's made me happy when I think that she loves our family and little baby Henry so much that when she grows up she wants to do just what I do. Even though she knows that might mean she's really busy taking care of her kids all the time. My sister reminded me the other day about a song (primary?) our mom taught us when we were young, "When I grow up, I want to be a Mother, and have a family". . .I had completely forgotten about it, but as soon as she mentioned it all the words immediately came back to me, and it made me think about what a good job my mom did with making motherhood seem important and honorable to me and my five sisters. It also made me want my kids to know that I love what I'm doing (and not hear me complaining or sounding frustrated all the time). Obviously I'm in no hurry for Rachel to run off and get married and have kids, but I hope that she doesn't grow out of wanting to be a mom.
Rachel borrowing my pack to carry her doll around
Rachel with some of her babies
Practicing with Henry
