Moments That Make It Worth It

Many days, sometimes many moments of many days, EGR's two-ness gets the best of me. The bull-headedness, the tantrums, the general disagreement with everything - in other words, her completely normal toddlerhood, just wears me down sometimes. But there are those moments that make it worth the struggle. Moments that melt my heart or just plain amuse me. These are a few recent ones.

I've been trying to praise her specifically for things she does that I like. For example, I might tell her, "I had a good day shopping with you today. Thank you for holding my hand while we walked in the parking lot and saying goodbye to the baby dolls when it was time to leave." This has led to her praising me, and it's so sweet. She tells me, "Thank you for having a good week with me, Mama." Once, upon parking in our driveway, she said, "Good job driving, Mom."

I recently painted her toenails pink at her request. A few days later she asked me to paint my toenails pink to match hers. I did, and now she tells me, "Thanks for painting your toenails pink like mine, Mom."

I think the best compliment I've received lately came from her. The child thinks everything stinks, and makes no bones about pronouncing things stinky - including me. I've never heard her say anything smelled good, until the other night. I was cuddling her at bed time and she turned her head into my neck and took a big sniff. I laid there waiting for her to tell me I stunk (because she has before), but she said in her sleepy voice, "You smell good, Mommy." I was so proud, I bragged about it to Dave.

We've been working hard on manners, so I've really been modeling them for her when I make requests or when she does what I ask of her. This results in lots of spontaneous "thank yous" and gradually more "pleases". It has also led to the most polite disagreement I've ever heard. When I ask her to do something she doesn't want to do, she'll respond with "No, ma'am!"

The other morning, I left her sitting with Luke at the breakfast table and when I came back into the room I overheard her talking to him. I don't know what all she said, but I heard her tell him, "There she is Wuke. Mommy's back now."

She has nicknamed her brother "Luker" which she pronounces "Wuker." It through me for a woop, I mean a loop, the first time I heard it.

Just this morning, she was trying to convince me to let her wear her black Mary Jane shoes to school. She knows that she has to wear tennis shoes so she can play on the playground, so when I told her she had to wear tennis shoes today, she told me the playground had moved to someone else's house. I had to bite my jaw to stop the laughter. I also have to give her credit for formulaing what would have been a very logical argument, had it been true.

H. Luke can't talk yet - well, not intelligible words anyway - but he makes it worth it when he smiles his toothless, one-dimple smile at me.