What Do You Want To Be

Dinner conversation:

Lucas had a light bulb go off in his head as he exclaimed, "Ah ha! Now I know what I want to be! It just came to me. A restaurant person!"

Me, "You want to work in a restaurant?"

Lucas, "Yeah and guess what? Kids will eat FREE all the time!"

Me, "Sounds like you want to be the restaurant OWNER and wow, if kids eat free all the time that is the place I want to go to eat!"

L, "Kids eat free and teenagers and adults pay half."

M, "If kids are free and teens and adults are half-price who will ever pay full price? You have to make money."

L, "Ok kids are free, teenagers are half, and adults are full price. So adults are $10, teenagers are $5 and kids are $0."

Then he asked Kayla what she wanted to be when she grew up. Kayla gave the same answer she gives for this question 99.9% of the time: "I be a princess!"

Me, "Kayla you can't be a princess when you grow up. He's asking you what you want to be when you grow up; when you're older, what you want to do."

(Yes, shame on me, I know. I shouldn't have used 'can't' and told her she couldn't set her her goals on being a princess, because really, she could be a princess. She could get a job as Cinderella at Disney. She would love it and that would be right up her alley. But I think when she's answering this question she's thinking about the present and she loves to dress up and put on dresses. I don't think she's really thinking about the future and what this question really means.)

Before I could throw out some suggestions to Kayla she surprised me with a quick reply, "A doctor!"

Me, "A doctor?! Really? You don't even like going to the doctor!"

K, "Yeah! I be a doctor!"

M, "What about a doctor's helper?"

K, "Yeah I do that, a doctor's helper. I help the kids!"

M, "So you'll help the kids when they come to the doctor's office? That sounds like a great idea!"

L, "What does Dad want to be?"

Since Joe wasn't home from work yet I took the liberty of answering for him.

M, "He's already grown up."

L, "Yeah but what does he want to be?"

M, "Well he's already an airman in the Air Force."

L, "So he fixes airplanes?"

M, "No, not everyone in the Air Force flies, or works on, planes. He's in charge of all the computers and making sure they are working so everyone else on the whole base can do their jobs."

L, "Oh so that's why he helps you sometimes?"

L, "Now who do you think I'm going to ask next?"

M, "Me. But I'm already a mom."

And now this was my favorite part of the discussion. His response was the best ever.

L, "So that means you do just about ... (he cocked his head and was thinking) ... everything?"

I was almost expecting him to say "nothing" so I laughed at his answer of "everything" and said, "Pretty much!" and gave him a high five. Then we all got in a discussion of all the different job titles I have: chef, housekeeper, account, taxi-driver, nurse, teacher, party-planner, organizer, etc. I could have explained that I'm also a seller of toys and a Baby Net Support Parent, but I let that go ... he was impressed enough with all my other job titles!

He was also aware that I don't get monetary reimbursement for all my mommy-jobs when he pointed out that "You don't get any money though; dad gets all the money."

I had to set him a little straight on that, "Dad makes the money, but I get it."

L, "Oh yeah, Dad gets some of the money, but you get most of it because you pay for everything."