Sophie...mother of 5

My goodness, I am shocked at how early the fairy tale illusion of love begins! Sophie has just turned four and undoubtedly, her favourite games to play are weddings and babies. Not a day goes by that we don’t engage in each of these fantasy games at least once. Take this morning for example...

We were sitting at the bench having breakfast and Sophie began mumbling away. As she is forever talking to her imaginary friends, I tune in and out and don’t always listen with my full attention. One thing she said this morning really pricked my ears though...”Oh, I’m just talking to my husband. We can talk about everything, don’t we honey. We just love each other”. Where on Earth does a 4 year old get the notion that a husband and wife talk about everything...? It is certainly not from Mat and I leading by example, that’s for sure. On the off chance he is home when the kids are awake, the most we talk about are housekeeping topics such as bills, kids and work. Nothing grand there!

Then there is her idea of babies. Just yesterday we were playing doctors where I was the doctor and Soph was the pregnant lady checking  in for her caesarean (having had an emergency caesar with Soph and planned caesar with Elliott, I can very easily explain where babies come from in my case J). Sophie delivered five babies at once...two girls, two boys and a puppy. She was very thoughtful gestating a puppy because as soon as they were all born, she sent them all off to play with the puppy and got on with whatever she wanted to do. There might be something to this line of thinking!    

Finally is her most bizarre idea that “girls don’t go to work, just boys”. Oh hell no! I am amazed that she has this thought in her beautiful little head because while I am a stay at home mum, every other female in her life, from her grandparents to her aunties, all go to work. Also, I am always telling her about my work as a teacher before I had her and Elliott and I make no secret of the fact that I will be going back to work when her and Elliott are at school (probably sooner...damn rising cost of living!) I can tolerate the daily weddings and birthing of countless babies but I draw the line at this one. No child of mine is going to have this outdated belief that women stay home to have babies and men go to work! Let operation “retrain Sophie’s line of thinking” begin...wish me luck! J