Flipside

I’ve complained enough about Skyler’s age and antics lately, so here’s one about how amazing, adorable, and funny she is. These are the things I relish in the moment and cling to the memories of when she’s on one of her rampages.

I love how she likes to hop everywhere she goes. I think she hops about half the time, walking the rest. Sometimes she sets a marker on the floor and does big hops, and says “Look how big my broad jump was!!!” She and I actually did broad jumps together during one of my CrossFit home workouts. It was a blast for both of us!

Speaking of exercise, even though I’d rather focus without distractions, I kind of love when she tries to imitate the moves I’m doing. Her form is usually terrible, but it’s fun watching her try! She says they do exercise class at preschool too.

Her taste in music is just like mine. She loves her Shinedown hard rock songs, and named one Theory of a Deadman song “Mommy and Daddy’s song” after hearing for the first time while she was in the car with Ronnie and me, and it’s been that ever since. But then I made a mix CD of mostly 80’s music that makes me happy, with one of my favorites from childhood being “Lose Control” by Eric Carmen. She heard it in the car with me a few times and took to it. She asked me “can I hear my favorite song please?” and that is the one. She just sings it in her own made up version of the words in the back seat and it is hilarious! She’s also taken to Belinda Carlisle’s “Heaven is a Place on Earth.” She says the “place on earth” song is “such a happy song!”

I love how she puts her hands up at her sides when she starts a sentence with “but…” and when she puts her index finger to her mouth and looks up at the ceiling when she starts a sentence with “I think…”

I love how she likes to count everything, and likes to give me her collection of pennies when I tell her we don’t have any cash to ride the merry-go-round or spend the money on a toy she wants.

I love how she thinks. Today Ronnie bought her a yellow rose and me a pink rose and set them in a small vase in the living room. Before bedtime, she picked up the vase and said she was going to put the flowers in her room. I suggested she leave them out here so we can all enjoy them. She thought for a minute and said “Well, if we put them in my room, you can just come in there every day and look at them!” Like it was the perfect solution so we could all get what we wanted.

She’s a funny, clever, and extremely curious little girl, though always careful in her curiosity. She asks so many questions. It wears me out when it’s just the two of us. I get in a zone in the car, answering “uh-huh…uh-huh…yeah…I don’t know…” to her nonstop questions about every random thing. Sometimes I just start nodding my head in answers, which she doesn’t see. And she will call me out on it! If she doesn’t hear me answer one of her questions, she yells at me and says “Mommy! You have to talk to me when I talk to you!”

I complain and whine about parenting her right now, and it is tough. It wears me out. But these little things and so many others are what keep me going. She’s really pretty cool.