2nd grade reality check

At the dinner table I ask Kate, as I always do, about her day at school and what she played with her friends at recess.
- We talked about Hollywood, she says. Lisa and Sara (her BFF's) talked about how they want to move there when they are 18, or 19 the latest, and I listened.
- Why do they want to move to Hollywood? I ask, not able to contain my bemusement.
- I don't know. I think they want to be rock stars, and become famous, and have lot's of money. They want to live in really big houses with a swimming pool and a pet room and have someone that will look after their pets for them.
- Uh huh.
- And they said that maybe I could move with them, but I just said: let's not count me in.
- You don't want to move to Hollywood, honey?
- No. It seems like a waste of money. And like something that won't come true.
- So what do you want to do instead?
- I want to live somewhere else. Somewhere interesting. Like Hawaii. And I want to be a paleontologist. And marry and have children.

Talk about reality check.

It is no secret to either of the mothers that the three girls are very different from each other, and that where Lisa and Sara are more "girlie girls" with their heads in their clouds, Kate is bookish and slightly geeky in an adorable way. While her friends spend hours in front of the mirror dressing up, Kate will be in too much of a hurry to actually play to care about whether the sweater is on the right way. And where they are giggly and have secrets and talk about the boys, my daughter has a dry, sharp sense of humor that would knock even the wittiest comedian flat, and she thinks that boys are a waste of time because they take up too much space. If asked what they would like to play it's Barbies versus Mastermind. To put it in simple terms: if Sara and Lisa are Hannah Montana, Kate would be Dora Explorer's no-fuss and much less annoying older sister. And as much as I would never want to alienate my daughter from her friends, or deliberately make her feel different from them, this is one that I want to quietly support for as long as I possibly can.

- I think your dream sounds ten times better than theirs, I say without hesitating. You know you can be anything you like, sweetheart.

And even though this goes for her friends too, I believe it so much more because it is my daughter I am talking to.