Glimpses of a Future Audrey

It's Tuesday evening.  It's cold and gray out, the kind of evening you want to stay in.   I'd want my mom's turkey noodle soup and slices of  sharp cheddar if I could choose any meal to have.  Audrey and James are at ballet (Audrey is pirouetting, James is relaxing), and it's leftover night.   I have a few short minutes before they get home, just enough to sneak in a few tidbits.

We went to her friend's Bday party at one of those color your own pottery places.  Such a success, I want to go back again with her.

Painting Amelia the Unicorn
 

And of course there were cupcakes....

Going all in for the frosting...

I recall, when Audrey was just a small one, people giving us lists of dos, don'ts, advice, sayings, predictions etc.  One that has proven to be true, is that children seem to grow (physically, mentally etc) in big chunks, all at once, then they'll seemingly stop for a while.  It's a like a step function.  Right now I think Audrey is on the face part of the step.  The vertical part.  The steep part.  The part that is rapidly changing.  Well, yes, (Travis), one could argue that both parts of a step function are changing/growing, but it just seems the steep part is a better analogy.

She's reading.  The other night she read the words "quiet" and "bright", then last night she read things like queen, king, nanny, cook and the band part of bandage, all in a book she'd never seen before.  For a family of book enthusiasts, this is exciting stuff.  She's also starting to basic, basic math, more excitement for the self-proclaimed nerds in this household.

iPad Math

She's thoughtful and helpful (assuming we've fed her enough).  Otherwise, well,...not so helpful or thoughtful. 

She's creative.  The other day she was talking about something, I have no idea what.  We were on the way home from school, when she gives a run-on-sentence-monologue-about-everything-that-happened-in-school-and-what-they-ate-and-mommy-did-you-see-Amelia's-shoes-and-I-was-a-super-helper-and-miss-jackie-makes-the-BEST-chili-you-should-make-chili-like-miss-jackie.....you get the point.  She was excited and was saying "huge bunches" and came up with "hubunches".  I love it.  Hubunches.  I think we might petition Webster to toss it in the dictionary.  I want a hubunch of cookies, thank you very much.

As we sat the other day in a sunny reading chair talking, she put her face close to mine and said, 'Mommy, I see me in your eyes, do you see you in my eyes?"  I'm pretty darn sure part of me melted.  These small, unexpected, special moments make all the rough bedtimes disappear forever.

We try to reward such great behavior, to reinforce it.  This weekend we took her to a "playlet" at a local theater company.  We had breakfast of donuts and sugary cereal.  Luckily, Audrey had already devoured a full serving of 7-grain amish cereal, a cup of blueberries and some milk!  She still ate the entire donut and a box of Apple Jacks.  Hey, why not, right?  Then she made a crocodile puppet, then we all got to watch a scene from Peter Pan.  She was loving it, had hubunches of questions, and even got to hug Tinkerbell afterwards!

Applauding for a Peter Pan Playlet

So I see small glimpses of who she may be someday, and I love who I see.