For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 13

Monkey See, Monkey Do & Conversations with God:

Last Saturday, Audrey heard her first booming thunderclap since being able to verbalize her feelings. "Mama, what's that?" she asked.
"That's thunder, baby."
"Mama, make it stop."
(At this point, I could have gone into an explanation of lightning and air particles vibrating, but not being a person who knows much about such things, I went for the simpler explanation).
"Honey, I can't make it stop. God makes the thunder, only God can make it stop."
"Audrey make it stop."
"Well, you'll have to take that up with God."
And, apparently, she did. Right as I tucked her into bed, the thunder (which, she admitted to her Dad scared her) did stop. At least long enough for her to fall asleep.



This week has me remembering the first time I heard my recorded voice played back to me. I was in middle school. From the speakers of a tape deck, I had the sense of hearing something familiar, and at the same time asking, "Do I really sound like that?" Audrey's expressions of choice this week have me asking the same question. And, yes, I sound exactly like that.

On Wednesday, she told me to "give me [her] two minutes." I have no, ahem, idea where she got that.

The majority of Audrey's statements this week end the same way. "Audrey take bath, okay?" "Audrey watch movie, okay?" "Audrey want big house, okay?" (I have no idea if that last statement is accurate, but that's what it sounded like she said in the bathtub tonight). At first this struck me as a little odd, and then I noticed myself structuring my sentences the same way. "We have to change your diaper first, okay?" "We need to run to the store and then we'll go see trains, okay?" I had no idea I was doing this. How I managed to ignore something I do at such a high frequency is pretty incredible - and a little scary. Now that I am aware, it's something I've become a little focused, er...obsessed, about trying to change. Because, when she's four or five and I say, "we have to go to the store first and then we'll see the trains, okay?" odds are, she's going to say "no, I'd rather skip the store altogether."

It's an odd phenomenon to have a two-year-old mirror following me around all day, pointing out things I may or may not want to see. After several days of hearing myself repeated back to me in numerous ways, I spent part of Thursday watching Audrey play with a pair of Jason's shoes. She put them on, watched them fall off, and tried again. Then she took a lap around the kitchen, literally walking in his shoes. Growing up, I worried about wanting others to like me. Now, I'm worrying about the ways in which Audrey wants to be like me. It is not enough for us to tell Audrey who we would like for her to be. Our job is to become the people we would like her to be. Because, for better or worse, she is repeating our words, learning from our tendencies, and desperately trying to fit into those shoes. I want them to be good shoes. Good, sturdy shoes.