My Sweet Evie

This morning was a pretty typical Monday morning.  I woke up later than I should have, tried to hurry through getting ready before Gabe left (which was later than he should have, due to my getting up later than I should have), and started my breakfast while Evie finished hers.  Eleanora was sitting nearby, getting restless in her bouncy seat which she'll soon probably bounce out of.  We went through the rest of the morning rituals - cleaning up, getting lunch ready, getting shoes on, etc., and squeezed in a feeding for Eleanora.  The next part - getting into the car - is usually one of my most frustrating moments of the morning because Evie takes so long and wants to notice about 10 other things on the way there or suddenly wants to start playing with some obscure toy she hasn't touched in weeks.  She actually did okay, though, and as long as I kept prompting she kept making progress.  I put Eleanora in the car and went around to wrangle Evie from the driveway and guide her to her seat.  As I was leaning over to help buckle her in, feeling hurried and focused on leaving, she looked at me, touched my face with her hand and said, "look how beautiful you are, Mama."  My heart melted.  Here I am rushing us through life - once again - with my half-wet, stringy hair, wrinkles under my eyes from poor sleep, and she stopped to say one of the sweetest things I can imagine.  I know she may have just been repeating what we've said to her before, or she may not have known exactly what she was saying, but at the moment, it was such a wonderful way to get me to stop and acknowledge how beautiful she is as a person.  That's all.