I'm not gonna lie... As much as she's a delight at this age... boy is she a handful! Just when we were thinking, "Wow... those Terrible Twos were nothin'!". Here we are about a month away from celebrating her Big Three and it seems that the T-Twos want to close it out with a bang! {HA!} Leyla knows exactly when or how to make beads of sweat form on my forehead and upper lip {I know... sounds SO attractive, doesn't it?}. Mike and I have been pretty firm about discipline, enforcing "time outs" {much to the chagrin of my mother-in-law}, as well as trying to talk things out with her. Recently, however, at my friend's wedding, I found myself clutching my mimosa as if my life depended on it {HA!}. I asked my friend Mary, "Why is she acting this way all of a sudden?". She gave me a sympathetic yet slightly amused look and said, "Jane, she's just acting her age... It's what they do!". It was at that moment that I felt better... and told myself to never forget about the things that I love about this stage. Leyla sings in the car with me, talks to me about her day, explains that her pouty looking puppy dog toy looks sad because she misses her mommy, tells Mike to "drive fast like mama!", is brutally honest, convinced me that the Easter Bunny is not only female... but also pink, says that mama is "beautiful" and dada is "handsome", sounds like a mini-me as she scolds our dogs for trying to sneak in the house, says that the bowing Japanese doll in It's a Small World looks like me every time we ride, brings me my cell phone when it beeps, and lets her amazing toddler-imagination take her from being a princess, to a pirate, to a chef making me my favorite foods.
In those difficult mama moments, I've come to realize that it's because of the challenges that we see the beauty...
I'll end this post with a photo I snapped after we got home...
Happiness is: Seeing this face at the end of the day.
Make it a wonderful week, all... Happy Monday!
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