Perspective and Maggie

I have been so very amazed lately at the little girl my baby has become! How in the world did the worlds sweetest baby girl turn into the most beautiful little toddler? She speaks - non stop - and runs and builds and destroys and counts and sings and tries to jump and rolls and has a sense of humor?!! A sense of humor?! She is hilarious! And everyone who has seen her can attest to how amazingly stunning she is. I'm not even bragging or trying to be prideful, but she is just a gorgeous child! (Must be good genes from her daddy!). She can count to 11 most days, and can identify most of the letters of the alphabet. She repeats everything.

She amazes me with the memory she has. She loves to talk to Poppy and Grammy on Skype/FaceTime. And even though she barely actually dances at dance class, she talks about it all week. She kisses her brother at least a dozen times a day. She likes to sing the same songs over and over again, like "My God is So Big!" and "Jesus Loves Me" and "Patty Cake" and "The B-I-B-L-E" and "Mr. Sun" and others. The other day she started to sing "Amazing Grace how sweet the noise..." all by herself and I could have cried; it was the sweetest thing!

She comes up to Robert and I all the time and compliments us, it's so funny! "Daddy, I like your shirt." And once she said, "Mommy, I like your pee-pee!" Because honestly, what mother pees in private! She loves her friends and talks about them all the time. She remembers little details about them, or things they said once and it is remarkable. She loves to read books, and has "memorized" several of our favorites. We have fabulous tea (water) parties. Honestly, one of her favorite things is water - drinking it, pouring it, dumping it, stirring it... She loves to "sit on counter" when I am cooking. The other day she drew a curved line on the ground outside with chalk, and she said, "Look Mommy, a rainbow!" I admired it and then she said, "a promise! Jesus!" (She was remembering Noah and God's faithful promise to never flood the earth again! Well maybe not all of that, but at least something!)

It is my favorite thing in the world when she she comes up to us and asks for kisses or a "big hug!" Whenever she is told to apologize to Charlie she says, "sorry Charlie...I forgive you." She's learning, haha! She is just all around an awesome kid - so much energy, so much joy, so much fun, so much imagination, and all with a little side of crazy!

Now before you go and think she's perfect - HA! Along with all these amazingly wonderful things about my darling little girl, she has a king-sized attitude and can turn up the drama at a moments notice. It does my heart good as a mama to record all of the fabulous things I adore about her. It is so easy for me to forget those things and focus on the daily grind of discipline...and all of the hard parts of mommyhood. The times when she is driving me up a wall and will not obey to save her life, the times when the house is a disaster and then she dumps her food all over the floor, the whining like nails on a chalkboard and the attitudes - Yikes! Yet...compared to all the previous paragraphs of pure joy, well, it doesn't seem as overwhelming.

Being a mommy is truly the most amazing thing. I didn't know I could love my babies so much. I also didn't know how much I'd want to run away from the house screaming at times, haha! God is so good to give me such awesome babies and to call me to be a mother. So, mommies, when you're having a rough morning, or week ;), take a second to remember just one thing you LOVE about your little one, say thank you to The Lord, smile, and clean up the crayon off your counter joyfully as unto The Lord.