Oh, Isabel

This mind...
...is an interesting place. I swear day by day Isabel becomes wackier and more creative. She is bursting with creativity. Her favorite things - hands down - are anything having to do with music, dancing and art. And she has an imagination that is wildly vivid. She makes up elaborate stories all the time, and even makes up her own languages. I sometimes can't believe that she just turned 3. I had to record some of the recent Isabel doozies...

- While jumping on the new trampoline, she pronounced, "this is the best trampoline I have ever felt!"

- One day Isabel had said something hilarious, and I rhetorically asked her, "oh Isabel, where did you come from?" Without missing a beat, she replied, "oh, I'm from Africa!" She has since repeatedly said this. She has gone on to elaborate this story about how she and I were both in Africa, in the jungle, looking at animals in the sunlight and we found each other. And she tells it so convincingly.

- She asked me the other day, "mom, are dance lessons good or bad?" I said, "well, what do you think?" She said, "I think they're good. Dancing ... is incredible."

- She recently went through a phase where every time a song came on the radio, she would ask me who the singer was, whether the singer was a boy or a girl, what the song title was, what the words in the song were, and whether the singer liked chicken.

- I was showing her that Christmas star decor I had made, and asked her if she thought it was pretty. She said yes, and then went on to tell me it has 5 angles, and 5 points, and triangles have 3 angles, squares have 4, and circles have none because they don't have any sides. OK, then.

-The other day she told me she was a coyote and she wanted me to throw pretend rocks at her to scare her away (this has happened for real, can you tell we live on the plains?) and she went around yipping.

- She loves the stage. She has repeatedly asked me if she can do another dance recital soon, and tells me she can't wait for the next one. And last week she was standing on top of a long, flat storage container, pretending it was her stage. She'd do a song and dance number, get off, and say into her microphone, "who should we hear from next? I know - how about MEEEEEEeeeeeeee!!!" And then she'd get back up and do it all again.

And my favorite:

One day she and I were in the living room. I got up and went into the kitchen, at which point she says to me, "mom, it smells like you in here." I said, "oh, what do I smell like?" She replied, "um, like trash."

For the record, I am fairly sure this last one isn't true. Oh, my crazy daughter. I love you.