“monkey see, monkey do”

At times it is uncanny how much I feel like I’m looking in the mirror when I look at my little daughter.  Though she has so many of her daddy’s features, she looks so very much like my baby pictures, I often take a second glance: isn’t that me I’m looking at?

But more and more, I realize how much of myself I am seeing in her.  She learns by emulating me.  She gets excited beyond measure as Daddy’s homecoming approaches.  She needs measuring cups to “cook” with each time I get out a measuring cup.  She lines her recent Valentine cards up along the back of the couch just like my Hallmark cards from her daddy are lined up on the headboard of our bed.  She observed me rubbing her daddy’s sore leg and now does it of her own intiative.  I even mentioned to her that I was going to do the laundry, and before I knew it she was taking clothes out of the hamper for me.

Sometimes her actions catch me up short, however.  During a recent bout with a cold I was left with no voice.  To catch Ruth’s attention when she was being naughty I took to waving my hand back and forth and shaking my head “no.”  Suddenly she was using that as her own sign language for “no,” and now tells us “no” quite readily whether it’s “no, I’m not ready for bed” or “no, I don’t want milk”–by waving her hand back and forth, just like mommy did.

There’s nothing like having children to make one take a look in the mirror.  Am I always acting just like I want my daughter to?  Lord, give me wisdom…