The Joys of Motherhood

  Motherhood is a complicated road to go down. Here you have this sweet little person that you love more than anything in the world. Yet kids are unpredictable and can do things that leave you, for lack of a better word, speechless. Sometimes it's in a good way, though sometimes it isn't. I think that after the past few months, I'll share some of mine with you.   We were at the park today, and I was swinging Madi. She was talking about random things, babbling on in her toddler talk like a normal girl. Then all of a sudden she stares behind me in astonishment and yells, "HE'S NAKED! HE'S NAKED, MOMMY!" So I quickly look behind me and there's a man jogging on the sidewalk about 10 feet from us. He stares at her and sort of smirks at me and quickly jogs away. He had long running shorts on but no shirt. For the next hour at the park she would randomly say "he was NAKED" and Mom's would stare in half amusement half curiosity.   Then later, we were having lunch at Chickfila when she decided she wanted to take her pants off. She was determined to take them off. Luckily my Mom had her and we both convinced her not to strip down in public. But that wasn't without shrieking as loud as she could until everyone was staring. You know, the amusement curiosity stare I mentioned.   For some reason, she also has a new word. "Turd." She uses it correctly too, I might add. We were in the car and all of a sudden she yells, "Mommy, you're a turd!" and then giggled to herself. She obviously heard someone say it and it was amusing to her to repeat it. She also likes to tell people they "smell like poooop."   The other day she called me into her room with an uneasy voice. So I quickly went into her room to see what was the matter. She held out her hand and rubbed something gooey on my hand while saying, "EW!" I, being the mother of a toddler, just took it from her and put it on a napkin and placed it in the trash. Then I got curious, I said, "Baby, what was that?" and she nonshalantly replied, "A booger. From my nose."   But then, they do things that leave you speechless in the best way possible. Like the other night when she woke up in the middle of the night. I stumbled sleepily into her room and kneeled by her bed. She looked up at me and said, "Mommy, hold my hand." So I gave her my hand and she placed it in the middle of hers and fell asleep. It reminded me of when she was tiny. I used to just sit and watch her sleep, thinking it was the most angelic thing I'd ever seen.   It also made me think... Wait... What? That little helpless baby has turned into this hilarious toddler who constantly keeps me on my toes. But, that's part of the joy of motherhood... right?