Rachel's Motivation to Have Kids

Rachel always tells me she wants to be four things when she grows up: "an artist (very likely), a ballerina (doubtful), a bike rider (she still has training wheels), and, of course, a mom."

She loves pretending to be a mom. She and Lizza are always playing what they call "the family game", in which they pretend to be all sorts of different people in different families. Rachel usually ends up getting to be the mom.

Anyway, yesterday they were having a discussion about kids. Elizabeth had gotten the wild idea that when she's a mom, she's not going to have any kids, and Rachel was getting all annoyed ("Lizza, that's not even possible! Tell her, Mom!") Rachel then assured me that she definitely wants to have kids when she's a mom. I asked her why. I'm not really sure how I expected her to answer, but it was not this:

Rachel: Well, I want to have kids for two reasons. One, if I don't have any kids, there won't be any reason to stay home all day. And two, I don't want holidays to just be dumb.

Me: What?! What do you mean? Why would holidays be dumb without kids? (Yes, I was ignoring her first reason. And also ignoring that she said "dumb", a word not usually allowed.)

Rachel (rolling her eyes at me as she pointed out the obvious): Are you serious, Mom? Think about it - Halloween would be sooo dumb! Do you think I just want to walk around all by myself? How will I go trick-or-treating?! I need kids for that!

Silly me - I guess I have been taking my kids for granted. And Elizabeth better start re-thinking her mom-with-no-kids plan, or she won't be getting much candy when Halloween comes around.

I really do think Rachel will be a good mom, though. She is very good at taking care of people. She always helps me with Henry, and when Elizabeth got her shots and her legs were really sore, Rachel carried her around the whole day.



Awhile ago she got some hand-me-down shoes that were way too big for her, but she absolutely adored them because 1) they had high heels, and 2) they passed the "click, click, click" test on the tile floor. I put them in her dress-up box instead of out in the garage with the too-big clothes.

Somehow they became her go-to "mom" shoes, and she wore them whenever she was playing the "family game":

I love the hand on hip in this one:


Only a real mom can pull off that whole swimsuit/high heels look so well:


In her mind, the mom shoes make any outfit better:


Whispering some sort of mom advice to her "little one":


??


She does okay without the shoes, too:

The proud mother of triplets:


And my personal favorites - just some busy moms talking on their cell-phones while pushing their babies around (and wearing dishcloths for aprons):

I doubt these poor moms even have time for trick-or-treating!