When I grow up...

Does Sadie look a little different to you? Perhaps you can't tell from this angle, but she has a certain new look about her. In this picture, Sadie has a baby in her tummy! And pretty much all day, every day, Sadie has at least one, and up to three, "little ones" that are waiting to be born. Some are animals, most though are dolls, and they are placed under her dress, tucked into her waistband, and usually mommy and daddy are given one or two to tuck into our clothes as well.

Several months ago, Sadie started the age-appropriate-obsession with having a younger sibling. And at first, this 41 year old mother also obsessed with how to answer these pleas. Do I tell her honestly that I would have loved nothing more than to have given her three siblings, as her father and I planned when we first got married to have four children like the families from which each of us came? I feared that this answer would make her sad, and see that we were sad, and indeed we can't give her everything she (and we) want -- isn't it too early for her to learn that we are actually mortal? Or do I tell her that we only wanted one child, just one just like the one that we have, and didn't need another because we had achieved perfection the first go-around? This answer might cause her to believe that her parents are in absolute control of fate and destiny, which is also a lie (not to mention encourage an ego of great proportions!). Or do we do, what we in fact did, which is go between both answers depending on the time of day and the energy we have for explanation, leading the child instead to perceive that her parents are totally inconsistent and don't have a uniform approach to even the most important questions?

Yes, that's pretty much what we did. I was afraid that she would notice the "crack in the armour" and perceive, for the first time, her parents didn't really know how to answer such an important question. But she rolled with it. Sure she asked it again and again, but she didn't seem to hold our answers against us, which I guess is what unconditional love is truly about.

But more recently, Sadie came up with her own way of looking at the question that really stunned Mark and me. And demonstrated once again that even the biggest questions have a way of demonstrating their own answers, and working themselves out in a way that no amount of planning could ever yield.

Sadie's obsession with having a sibling has subsided. A few weeks ago she was asked by a neighbor what she wanted to be when she grew up. Typical answer had been that she wanted to be a mommy, with anywhere from two to ten children. But this time... her answer came out clear and concise without a pause for thought "I want to be a doctor that cuts mommies' tummies open and gives them their babies for the first time."

And she has repeated that every single time that she has been asked, since (which is a lot). The only variance is that one time she asked me if she could have that same job but do it in outer space? To which I said, indeed, she could.

While both my father and Mark's father are doctors, we never suggested that Sadie undertake this occupation. This obsession with being a doctor that gives C sections (she knows no other way of delivery, as we have told her of her own birth story) is just something that she came up with on her own.

And so this picture shows me that there are indeed, always multiple ways to view a situation, and indeed they can be polar opposites of each other. The grin on her face, at least this time, is not the grin of one expecting to give birth to a child, about to experience the life changing event of being a mother. Indeed, not. She is grinning because she was watching me play the role of the doctor who was going to pretend to cut her tummy open and lift the baby up, immediately run over and place her under the light and count her fingers and her toes, and then prepare to return her to her new mother (who instead of laying there basking in the enormity of the event was instead sitting up and preparing to sew herself up, since that was the really fun task).

Sadie has heard me tell her many times a day how being a mother, and being her mother, is by far the best thing that has ever happened to me. She knows that. But she has taken her difficult question of "why aren't there more?" and turned it on its side. My daughter (and her father and I, as her nurses and assistants) can give birth to dozens of children a day, and no one is sadder or troubled by those outcomes.

Motherhood is full of hard questions and coming up with an honest answer is surely a job that I will have a thousand times over. But it sure was nice for now, to have this slight reprieve. Instead of the pressure to answer, I got to see my daughter herself come up with another way of solving it. And for that, I am most proud.