Katie Holmes has come a long way since bursting onto the scene playing the girl-next-door in the teen soap "Dawson’s Creek."

A fresh-faced Holmes graces the April 2009 issue of Glamour magazine to help them celebrate the magazine’s 70th anniversary. And, in the issue, Holmes, 30, open up on a variety of topics — including motherhood and marrying her school-girl crush, actor Tom Cruise, 46.

On wedding her childhood crush:

When ‘Top Gun’ came out, my sisters were like, "Oh, my God, ‘Top Gun!’ Tom Cruise!" And I very confidently said, "I’m going to marry him one day." It wasn’t like, How do I get to Tom Cruise? It was just: I think I’m going to marry him. Why not? He’ll like me. I’m fun.

Becoming a mother has been the most amazing experience — in an instant you become strong. You have to be a little bit wiser; it’s the most important job in the world … During the first couple of days [with Suri], we would just sleep right next to her to make sure she was breathing. And I was constantly learning on the job, but Tom was very helpful and supportive.

We like to be together, so we use the house for our [business] meetings. [We] play Yahtzee, board games, Scrabble. We grill; have pool parties. We play ‘The Three Little Pigs’ and Suri is the Big Bad Wolf. [Tom] reads storybooks to Suri, and we all laugh. When a good song comes on, he’ll break out in a dance. We’ll watch movies in bed — recently ‘Madagascar’ and ‘Cinderella,’ for Suri. We really have a good time.

On her doting husband:

He loves women; he was raised with sisters. He’s strong and intelligent and very, very funny. For my thirtieth birthday he couldn’t be in New York [where she was doing her play]. So he organized the whole audience at that show to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to me, and then he had a cake rolled out on the stage.

On daughter Suri:

I see glimpses of Tom and me in her. She’s really such a special girl — strong and funny. She’s her own person. She has a great sense of humor.