I hear her scolding her baby dolls with the exact same words I use. "I. Have. Had E-NOUGH." she sternly says. "I am THROUGH with this conversation" she states, shaking her head. "That's fine, you don't have to eat anymore. I don't want to FORCE you to eat but if you don't, then NOOOOO dessert!" she threatens. "Wow, you've made a HERMENDOUS mess in here!" she says.

In Mystic, the water was about 20 degrees colder than she's used to in our pool. She wanted so badly to go swimming in it, but each limb that touched the frigid water turned her off more than the last. Tim, being the fantastic father that he is (no one was getting my ass in the water that first day), was waiting patiently in the water freezing his boys off so that he could be there when in fact she was ready. It was literally 20 minutes when she finally got herself lowered off the dock into the water and she said shaking her head (as I am assuming I have said to her in the past), "I cannot believe I'm doing all of this for you daddy."

She also takes on my pain as if it's her own. She was holding her lower back with one hand yesterday and when I asked what was wrong she said, "it's nothing... just my back is sore. I'll be ok, it's just from carrying my baby around all day." I am prone to headaches and she now after a tantrum will grab her head and say, "I now have a SPINNING headache!". Her lips were a little red over vacation and she explained that all the sun gave her "chopped lips". She plops herself down on the couch at the end of the day and with a winded voice states, "Woooph, what a LONG day."

She takes some good things from me too. She is a fantastic gift receiver (what can I say? I love getting gifts and I figure the more excited I am, the more I'll get!). No matter what it is that someone has gotten her she says, "Oh. My. God. I just LOVE it. It's PERFECT." It isn't until the gift giver is gone that she'll say to me, "mommy what is it?".

There are certain things that I don't notice are similar to me but Tim shakes his head in amazement when he watches her. When she tells a story she repeatedly pushes her hair behind her ear which supposedly mimics me. When she looks in the mirror she looks at her butt (what little of it there is) first (come on, who doesn't?).

There are some things she does that worry me because I haven't nailed down where she gets them from. Like the possessed, Carrie face she makes when she's really mad where all I see are the whites of her eyes because her head is down and she doesn't want me to know she's looking at me. Can you picture that one? It's frightening... and I hope it's not one I do. The piercing, "WHAAAAAT?" that she screams when I say something she doesn't believe. It's painful and I'm on the hunt for her preschool friend who started it. I've prided myself in teaching her to have some kick-ass manners. And when she says things like, "Someone want to get me something to drink, maybe?". I look around and wonder who took my 4 yo daughter and replaced her with the 14 year old sassy-one.

She has her first tennis lesson tomorrow. I was telling Tim that I couldn't believe she chose to not take gymnastics again to instead "try something new". Tim was like, "what do you mean you can't believe it? You're playing tennis... of course she's playing tennis!". I just hope she is able to come close to hitting the ball and doesn't get all pissy when she can't. Like. Mommy.