You're Gonna Miss This. (Really. I Swear.)

Happy Monday! How was your weekend? Ours was busy and full!

Friday night we went to a birthday party for my nephew (and also kind of for my brother) because this is Birthday Season in my family. And, oh! Sidenote! We've added another birthday to the fall calendar. My baby brother had a baby!

Meet Emmet. Sophia says she is going to call him Jenny. Apparently she was disappointed because she thought he was going to be "more girly." 

Nope, he's all boy!

Anyway.

While we were at said birthday party, the rest of the kids were playing outside but Sophia decided she was going to come in and play in the toy room. She had been in there for awhile and I poked my head in to check on her. She was standing in front of the toy kitchen and making a face, a face I know all too well. I said, " Sophia, whatcha doing?"

"Ummm...I'm poopin."

Awesome.

I should tell you, that we have been making slow and steady progress with the potty training to the point that I felt fairly confident in taking her Places Away From Home wearing her big girl panties.

Consider that confidence shattered. Luckily I had a spare set in the car and was able to get things cleaned up relatively easily.

There was a time in my life when I would never consider the cleaning of various bodily functions "easy". Oh, how being a mother changes your perspective! Turns out there is a scale of disgustingness and I've done enough clean up of other "stuff" to the point that this particular mess didn't really phase me.

So, anyway.

The next day was Sophia's birthday - her actual birthday, we had celebrated with the family for both girls birthdays the week before. But we always save OUR presents for them for their actual birthday. We had to take our van in to get a headlight replaced that morning and because we are the kind of people who are always prepared and never do anything at the last minute, we also needed to buy Sophia's birthday presents.

(In my defense, I had been thinking about what to get her for weeks)

(Also, we now live more than 15 minutes away from Target.)

(And did I mention we recently moved and my organizational skills appear to be packed in a box somewhere?)

So. Anyway. We divided and conquered, Dave took Sophia to look for some new work shoes (for him, not her) and I took Lily to get Sophia's presents. Our van still wasn't done by the time we were done so we decided to go to a new store in town to look around for awhile until it was finished.

(There is a point to all of this, I promise).

This new store was a Mills Fleet Farm. They sell hunting and fishing and various other outdoorsy type paraphernalia. They do NOT have a large selection of children's clothes. Please keep this in mind for future reference.

So while in the store, I decided to take both girls to the bathroom. The store is huge, it took us like a half hour to get to the restrooms (or that's what it felt like) but we managed to get into the stall without incident and I got Sophia ready, turned to get some toilet paper to lay on the seat and turned back to see her standing there with a look of horror on her face. 

In case you missed all of the foreshadowing, she went to the bathroom. While standing right in front of the toilet. All over her pants and her underwear and her shoes.

And if you will remember, I had used up the spare set the previous night during the poopy underwear incident.

So, I called Dave and he made his way to the bathrooms while I mopped up the puddle and pulled up Sophia's sopping pants, he took them out to the car and I headed to the children's section to try to find something to put her in.

The "children's section" at Mills Fleet Farm basically consists of three racks with some Carharrt overalls, Wranglers and camo pajamas. The only thing they had in her size were some pink camo pajamas.

So that's the story of how Sophia got a pair of pink camo pajama pants for her birthday.

When I got back to the car, Dave saw the pants and laughed and said, "Ah, having kids is funny, isn't it?"

And I said something like, "Grrrr...mumble mumble HUMPH."

Then he started singing, "You're gonna miss this..."

Ahhh...that song gets me everytime.

See, the thing is, the poopy pants and potty accidents? I'm not going to miss them. But those things are just part and parcel of raising a three year old.  

And I do know, at some point, I will miss having a three year old. 

I'll miss the chubby cheeks and hands.

I'll miss the fact that she always wants to be with me.

I'll miss the post-nap crazy hair snuggles.

I'll miss her exuberance for simple things like Daniel Tiger and bananas.

I'll miss her utter disgust for, "kissing on da wips"

I'll miss her mispronunciation of "puh-sghetti". And the way her "L's" all sound like "W's"

I'll miss her ability to run through the park in a pair of pink camo pajama pants and boots without a shred of self consciousness. 

I will miss her innocence and her complete trust in me.

Someday, I will miss having a three year old. But I've still got 363 more days and I plan on soaking up every last one of them.

Happy birthday Sophers! I pray you never lose your energy and your zest for life. May God take that fiercely independent, stubborn will and mold it to His. May He make you a warrior for Jesus! Never forget that it's your heart He is after...and I pray that someday you will give it completely over to Him. There's no one in the world that will cherish it like He does.

I couldn't love you more! You are worth every single mess I have ever had to clean up and every bit of labor it took to bring you into this world three years and two days ago. You're my favorite three year old :) Love you bunches!