Her Mother's Daughter

The small fry is into channeling me these days. It never ceases to amaze me how much she sounds like me. All the inflections of my speech, she picks up. The ah's, la's, hah's...I say a word or phrase once and she picks it up, sometimes without me even realising it.

In hearing her talk, I realise what I sound like. I've discovered I have a collection of choice phrases: be careful; wait ah...; ah see, I told you, right!; what's going on?; are you ok...?; hah, what happened?; so funny la, you; oh, it's ok....; aiya!; what else?; can or not?  It almost feels like it borders on narcissism (on my part, not hers), her imitations of me but the accuracy of her speech and actions, as a mirror to mine,  bowl me over in their hilarity and their sincerity of intent.

She really wants to sound like me, act like me and be like me. She really is a mini-me.

Her attempts at being me are tempered by her innate character: she is more reserved like her dad. She is only active and a chatterbox amongst friends and family. She is shy around strangers, sometimes painfully. She is more apt to be bullied than be the bully, although I'm not so sure that is such a good thing. The only one she bosses around and bullies is Pixel (maybe her parents too but then again, parents are exempt). I can't teach her how to stand up for herself...yet. Before I can tell her to stand her ground, she's already given the toy/book/object to the other child who wants it from her. And I haven't seen her fight back. Yet.

When the time comes, I hope she channels a little more of me other than the way I speak. Not because I want her to be me but because independence and assertiveness (sometimes aggressiveness) can stand one in good stead and propel a gal a long way.