twirl...

My Ashlyn.

I can see her maturing more every day and I often catch glimpses of the woman she will become.  In many ways she is already so grown up.

Ashlyn is no longer that little girl who was so heavily influenced by the adults in her life.  She can now form her own opinions.  She has her own taste in music which, at the moment, includes a lot of Taylor Swift.  It does not, however, include her brother or her parents singing and dancing along to Taylor Swift in the car.

Ashlyn has developed her own likes and dislikes and her own sense of style.  Actually, she has always had her own specific sense of style…and been very vocal about it.

She went through a phase where she would only wear dresses or skirts.  Any pants that were purchased for her were pushed to the back of her drawer, untouched, as her little legs quickly outgrew them.  Every day she chose a different skirt to wear, the more material the better.

Why the need for so much material, you ask?
Why, the more material the better the twirl.

I know there are plenty of other little girls who go through this phase.  You see them as they twirl; hair floating in the breeze, arms spread wide, heads down watching as their skirts dance along with them.

Ashlyn would twirl and spin whenever she had the chance but never more so than when there was a reflective surface nearby where she could catch a glimpse of herself in mid-twirl.  I often wonder what was going through her head as she looked into the mirror.  Was she suddenly one the princesses that she spent hours playing with or something else entirely.  I would have loved to see inside her child-like mind to what her imagination had created.

Of course, Ashlyn has since grown out of the skirt-only phase, and will actually wear pants, although she is still very particular about what she wears.  Recently, Ashlyn declared that she hated skinny jeans and wanted bell bottoms instead.  She got her first pair of bell bottoms for Christmas from Memejo and they are now her favorite pair of pants.  Incidentally, she has also decided that she wants a Volkswagen bus when she is able to drive and I'm thinking that her pants will greatly compliment her vehicle choice.  Where she is going to get the money to afford the somewhat pricey vintage vehicle is another story altogether.

Ashlyn frequently tells me, "I don't want to be popular.  I want to be unique."  And she is.

She is strong, intelligent, funny and kind.  She is sensitive, caring, quirky and wise in the very best of ways.  She even has pet peeves; she can't stand when someone is not authentic and pretends to be something they are not.  

After a recent shopping trip Ashlyn gave us a little fashion show so that we could see all the outfits that she had picked out.  On her third outfit she came out of her room, a smile spread wide across her face and said,  "watch how well this dress twirls…."




Yes, Ashlyn is growing up but in many ways she is still that little girl.  The one who loved her dresses and lived to twirl.