This Beautiful Life

Making the decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking outside your body.
-Elizabeth Stone

Babou is deep in the process of discovering and developing her will. And, not surprisingly, it is quite a little force of nature; a squall in the domestic scene.

Yesterday was one of those days that was an extreme test of patience for me. It had finally started raining after a two week dry spell; I was happy it was raining and geared us all up to go to the park and grocery store. Loco O. needed to run and I thought it would be a fun little adventure.

It was not.

Between the dog pulling me one way and the baby pulling me another or, worse, refusing to hold my hand as we traversed busy streets, I thought I was literally going to come out of my skin. The grocery store was worse; she couldn't be in the cart because her rain boots kept falling off so she had to walk with me through the store and that was just way too much fun for her and way too much for me.

When I finally got home, I spent her nap time engrossed in the Sears book entitled "Discipline." It gave me some good ideas and I gave the afternoon and Babou a fresh start.

I don't know if it was the ideas in the Sear's book, or if it was the act of trying to work with Babou but either way the afternoon and evening were a much different story, a much nicer story illustrated with cooperation!

Later that evening, as I was getting ready to put her to bed, I noticed that she was already in bed. She had her doll and was tucking the blankets up around its neck and was giving it a kiss goodnight. She then gave it a squeeze and wiggled her index finger at it and said, very authoritatively, "seepy seepy!" My heart almost burst and I promised myself then and there to always cherish every moment...even the trying ones.

*Note on previous post: I am not that far ahead in my garden, trust me, the pictures that accompany the previous blog were from last April. I love looking at them and thinking of spring. The picture of Babou cracks me up because she look like some cowboy out checking out the back forty!