The older this child gets the more comments I receive about her looking like me. I'm not sure if I agree, although I have always seen something very familiar in her. As she has grown older there have been other traits- her love for music, her sway and head pop anytime she hears a beat, her twirling when she has a skirt on, and then I must mention her strong ability to protest any harassment from her brothers (something I am still quite adept at, I must say). Well, she surprised me for the first time. While we were at Bear Lake, Cody brought his dog over to hang out. I was shocked at Malynn's reaction. She was drawn to that dog like you couldn't believe. I couldn't help but remember the times at Liz's house in Salt Lake when we were little girls jumping on her tramp. Pepper, the Blundells' harmless dog, would jump up on the tramp and run around excitedly on the pads. I don't know what I thought, but all I could do was run crying into her house praying that Pepper wasn't on my heels. Which of course takes me back also to the memories of jumping off the school bus at Rackers' house and frantically running for my life with the Butlers' dog Brittany (who wasn't so harmless) barking, nipping at my heels and hair all the way up the hill to my home. I hated that dog. Now, here is my mini-me with not only courage, but an absolute adoration for animals- all animals, it seems (even bugs, or dust particles that fly through the sunlight that she thinks are bugs). It's not that I don't like animals, I just don't have that certain gene that makes someone whine awwwwww when one is around. It might be due to my father's highly sensitive allergies of all animals with hair, fur and feathers-- which is the reason we never had a pet (okay, Cory had many various reptiles over the years, but I never claimed them as my own.) Maybe there's something wrong with me (I think Amanda's used the word 'cold' in the past when referring to my relationship with her feline that loved to smell my feet.) All right, so here's my first lesson of many that my daughter is her own person completely separate of myself. I get it.
