come on mama I want to show you the bodies...

No it's not a scene from my upcoming preschool horror film... That is what my pretty little princess said to me this morning while practically pulling my arm off to tug me across the room.

I didn't think it started this early... oh the humanity... oh the gore... oh the bodies... oh that's nice.

Yesterday at school the kids had a health lesson. One of the parents came in to teach them about their bodies. The end result was a wonderful almost life sized art piece with a brain, heart, lungs, rib cage, stomach, intestine, leg bone and arm bone with muscle. K is a an art girl. She loves to color, paint, draw, cut & paste, decorate, create etc... She also loves medical science. The fact that I haven't gotten her a lab coat and working stethoscope is probably criminal.

The health lesson combined her love of two things plus it gave her the chance to show off something that she feels she knows a lot about.

I have it on good authority (her own) that while she discussed the inner workings of the human body she left out all the potty talk that often causes her to roll in fits of laughter and stuck to the facts. Like the fact that the lungs are a couch for the heart...

Look at the big brain on my kid... I wonder if I can afford to send her to medical school?

That instinct to look at one thing she likes as a 5 year old and wonder if she'll be going to med school brings me to this: What do we want for our children?

Happiness right? That's what we want. I want K to be happy. My parent's wanted my brother and I to be happy, but I am sure they wouldn't have minded too much if one of us turned out to be a millionaire entrepreneur who bought them a fabulous new home...

We aren't though. We both lead normal lives. Normal people. But I think we're both happy. I'm happy. What about you big bro?

So does that make my parents happy and proud? Yes. It really does. I'm sure they'd like to see us achieve some of our goals, make a bigger footprint in the world than we have (without attempting global domination) find a way to make our mark on the world. But the fact is with my parents, as long as we're happy, they're happy.

Is that always the case? No it isn't. Some parent's never seem to think their child lived up to their true potential, that they quit, that they never tried in the first place. Those parents seem to measure the success of their child not by how happy they've become, but by how prosperous they've become...

I do not want to be that parent.

I also don't want to see my daughter take up with a bunch of groupies and follow some hippie band around the world in a VW bus.. so if that is what makes her happy forget what I'm saying now, it's detox and a shower for her...

Other than that how do I keep from pushing my ideas of her happiness on her? How do I make sure that she is secure in the knowledge that I will love her no matter what and all I really want from her are two things

1) her happiness
2) to never again hear her say "come on mama I want to show you the bodies..."