Like Me... Only a Little Bit Braver

The apple certainly doesn't fall far from the tree.

Ryley loves, loves, loves to swim. My parents used to call me a fish, but Ryley prefers that we call her a mermaid. On Saturday, at the final lesson of the session, she learned that she loves waterslides! I think she learned that last summer, too, but she's at that delightfully forgetful age where she re-learns to love everything. :-) I have to admit that I was a little jealous of her as she ran the waterslide cycle three or four times!

She's like me in other ways, too. Last week, I had to bring Ryley with me to work for a morning, so I set her up in the office conference room with a portable DVD player and her pick of movies. She chose "The Sound of Music" and was perfectly preoccupied for about two hours. At some point, my boss and co-worker were gathered around my desk for an impromptu meeting when, out of the blue, we heard Ryley belt out the final note of "The Lonely Goatherd"! She used vibrato and everything! So funny.

On the way home from school today, Ryley's mouth was going a mile a minute, asking questions and making comments and just being "Ryley." I said, "You are just such a chatterbox today!" She answered, "Just like you. You are always like, 'Ryan, this is my life....blah, blah, blah, gah, blah, gah, blah, gah, blah.'" And I have to admit that it's true! Poor Ryan gets it from both ends.

On Saturday, sensing an end to our "Moore Days" on the horizon, Ryan lobbied for another special family day. I think I probably jinxed our Saturdays by writing about them, because we only have one more weekend before his days off switch to Sunday and Monday. But anyhow, because Ryley has been studying about butterflies at school, we thought it would be fun to go to the Butterfly Pavilion with my aunt and uncle. Ryley and I had been there before, but Ryan hadn't, and Ryley didn't remember her previous experience. It was a lot of fun.

When it came time to visit Rosie the Tarantula, Ryley held back. She wasn't interested in holding a big fuzzy spider, and we're certainly not going to force her to do it! But I wanted her to at least take a look, so I told her that you get a sticker if you hold her. Ryley went right up, sat down on the stool, and let the tarantula crawl into her hand! We were shocked that she did it, and I told her afterwards that I never would have been brave enough to hold a tarantula! She replied, "Well, I really wanted the sticker...."

What kids will do for a sticker!

As we enjoyed Dairy Queen with my aunt and uncle later in the evening, Ryley said, "Hmmmm. Eating ice cream is kind of like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, only it's the opposite. A caterpillar goes into the pupa and comes out a beautiful butterfly, while beautiful ice cream goes into your tummy and comes out poop!"

And that's my daughter.