Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing, Baby

She knows where my every last button is, and she keeps on pushing B-BEEP-B-BEEP until I scold, correct, or redirect. And frankly, I'm tired of all three. She has become very physically strong and I have to keep reminding her not to kick mommy in the face/stomach whilst changing her diaper, not to give mommy male pattern balding as she claws through my hair. She is not like this for Loverpants. She doesn't second guess every offer of every sippy cup in the house. She negotiates, but he also placates, and together they are Switzerland whereas she and I are, on our good days, two rival sorority sisters forced to share a single.Yesterday, as I was putting her into her stroller (after she boycotted nap at daycare for the 2839502850923rd day in a row), I said, "I love Baby Girl," to which she replied, "I yuv Mommy! I yuv Daddy!" in a sing-song voice, for the first time ever.

I am pretty sure the Heavens opened up with a Halleluiah chorus. Unicorns were jumping over rainbows. Lions were laying down with lambs.

It gave me absolute goosebumps.

I can honestly say from the deepest recesses of my heart, 42 weeks of pregnancy coupled with inserting my own cervix ripener, 30+ hours of labor, a 106 degree temp, a super scary emergency c-section, week after week of Koreans squeezing my post-partum belly to see how well my uterus was shrinking, and every last day of brow-beating difficulty in raising this child so far has ALL BEEN WORTH IT because of that one little moment yesterday with that sweet little dumpling that doesn't really know, nor may she ever really know what it meant to me to hear those words from her.

She loves me. She really loves me.

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