Crazy Girl

After raising the twins for several years and seeing their personalities emerge... mild mannered, both a little shy, super smart, eager to please and obey, etc. etc., I began to take for granted that all of my children would be very similar in personality.  Then their boisterous little brother Ian joined the mix and where he possessed many of the same personality traits, he added a new sense of boldness and playfulness to the mix.  Now we are approaching Charlotte's fourth year and this child is like none other I have raised... she is flat out crazy!!!

Her imagination fills up the house.  She has told me for years about a family of spiders that live in her ears.  They go on constant exploits and chose to leave her ears for periods of time, but always seem to return because they are her friends.  She even told me that one night they snuck into my room, crawled up my nose and built spider webs.

She absolutely adores being a Sunbeam in her church class and I am told she enthusiastically participates in the lesson and tries to answer every question in primary (a little opposite of her big twin siblings).  She loves to sing the songs and my favorite is when she belts out a line form "I am a Child of God".... "has given me an Earthly home with parents kind of dear."  Kind of?

She began talking at such an early age (and non-stop) I might add, that I forget she is not older than she is and she catches me off guard sometimes by her funny comprehension of phrases.  I need to do so much better at writing down all of the funny little things she says, because she cracks me up every single day.  Sometimes, she can get in a little over her head with some of her sass and if she ever does find herself in a time-out, it is fun to listen outside the door as she vocally laments the injustice of the timeout and how I am probably not even her real mom but a wicked step-mother.  But those moments are rare and it is much more fun to listen to her play Barbies and hear the crazy story lines of their lives.

My absolute favorite Charlotte-ism though is when the day is done and we kneel down for prayers as a family, she climbs aboard her daddy's back because he is her buffalo.  And it has to be her dad, no other buffalo substitute will do.  Everyone knows that dads make the best buffalos.  Someday I need to get a picture of her on her buffalo before she outgrows it.... but then she told me that she doesn't plan to grow up at all and even tells us she will quit eating if we want her too so that she can stay little forever.  If only.

THIS is where she learned about riding buffalos.  Enjoy!