bella lately.

it's bedtime for my bella grace.  i crawl into her bed, snuggling up beside her as she looks at me with those soft, pleading eyes of hers and says "sing couple songs?" (an amazing stall tactic, i must say).  as i smooth the hair out of her face, she giggles as i brush my nose against hers.  i begin to sing "you are my sunshine" and as i near the end, bella's sweet little hands hold my face and pull my forehead to meet hers.  "you never know, mama, how much i yuve you, please don't take my sunshine awayyyyy."

ok hello, tears... cutest moment of my life.

i hold onto things like this.  on the days where the terrible twos are rearing it's ugly head.  when she throws herself on the floor when i say no, or runs away from me as fast as she can when i ask her to do something.  i remember her name means "beautiful grace" and i think... god knew what he was doing when we named her that.  because i need it.  more and more of that beautiful grace every single day.

lately, i've begun to refer to bella as "my sweet challenge."  she has been so difficult at times over the last couple of months and yet, almost every single day her sweet little heart moves me to tears.  just the other morning i had taken the girls to our favorite park.  as i was sitting on a bench feeding emmy and watching bella play, a sweet chubby little boy started following bella as she ran from one end to the other.  it was obvious he had disabilities--what exactly, i'm not sure--but he fixated on bella.  i watched as she turned and said to him "hi!  i'm bewwa" and proceeded to play with him without a discriminatory bone in her little body.  my eyes filled with tears (again... oh, geez!) as i watched her and i silently prayed that her heart would stay this sweet always.  that she would love people regardless of their status, their abilities or their appearances.

here are a few other things about bella these days:
-  she is obsessed with everything princess.  obsessed.  we have tea parties with all of her princess dolls.  she's constantly dancing all around our living room, with this stance where she pulls up her "dress" even if she's wearing shorts.

- she talks to everyone like she's their mama.  even me.  it's this sticky sweet high pitched little voice "you have good nap, daddy?"  "jude, you have good day?" "emmy, you comin too?" "you want waters, mama?" (yes, she pluralizes water).
- if we joke with her, she'll laugh and say "you kiddin me, daddy!"
- the other day while she was playing, i overheard her singing to herself the song from "beauty and the beast" but she made up her own words: "song as old as meme..."

- she likes to think that i'm her personal dj in the car.  her requests: "princess song?" (love story, taylor swift) "cars, i want cars!" (life is a highway, rascal flatts) "put your hands out!!!!" (party in the usa, miley cyrus) and "play bampy's song?" (sweet caroline, neil diamond).  yes, she's very eclectic in her music selection.  my new strategy is to play rascal flatts and tell her that every song they sing is lightening mcqueen's favorite song.  so far it's working.

- she thinks everyone lives in a castle.  when we pull up to her house, she'll often yell "oh wook it's bewwa's castle!"
- we say that she is like joey tribianni from friends because she goes up to everyone and says "how doin?" her other fav is "what's going ooooon?"

- we use positive reinforcements a lot with her because she seems to respond quite well to it.  so she loves "special treats" if she stays in her bed for naptime, or uses her big girl potty, etc.  the other day i told her "bella, you have two choices: you can obey mama or you may get a punishment."  she thought for a second and responded in the cutest, sly-est way with a new choice option of her own "ummm i want special treat!"

- girl's obessed with ice cream.  and says it as another southern girl should: ahhys cream.  and chocolate is a must!
- she's still into everything and has no fear (which scares me to no end).  in the last month, she got stuck in a restaurant high chair (she was trying to escape), got into someone else's prescription meds (had to call poison control), threw up in my hand as she was choking (she shoved a whole donut hole in her mouth all at once) and has been taking her diaper off at naptime almost on a every-other-day basis (which was especially lovely when it was full of you-know-what).
- she loves singing, dancing and music. which is awesome.
- she does not love the pool.  it's sad, really.

- emmy is one of her favorites.  she wakes up every morning and asks for her first thing, and loves making her laugh.  she was squatting by her, pushing her in her swing the other morning and excitedly told me "mama!  emmy smilin at you!" (meaning "emmy's smiling at me").

i love this little girl so much it hurts.  like really, really hurts.  even when she's being a stinker.  which is often, these days.  and yet she has the sweetest heart and the cutest little personality and i feel so blessed to be chosen to be her mama.  she is so much of my heart and soul.  so on the hard days, i'll just keep asking the lord for more and more of his beautiful grace!  and i often try to remember that all of these things that make her difficult now will serve her so well in the future.

now to conquer the battle of the potty... i'm thinking we'll just stay in diapers until kindergarten.
(just kidding).