Sweet Gracie

Grace has been into all kinds of mischief lately. If I turn my back for one second, she eats a half a bag of marshmallows, gets into my nail polish and cuticle trimmers, takes all the cushions off the couch and makes a bounce room, eats all the yogurt in the fridge, colors all 10 of her toes with rainbow markers, draws all over her arms and stomach to decorate herself, gets into my makeup and paints herself and the bathroom mirrors and counter, fills up the sink in the bathroom to wash her feet after going to the bathroom, pulls every single book off the book shelf to find the ONE she wants to read, changes her clothes six times a day to figure out which outfit is her favorite (and all those 'outfits' end up in the laundry basket before I know what she's done), pulls out my cross stitching thread because she wants to see if she can do it like me, drags a barstool in to the kitchen to gain access to cupboards she shouldn't be able to reach and starts eating crackers, raisins, and an entire box of fruit snacks, after which she hides all the wrappers under the couch cushions. This is the short list of what I can remember right now.

Then she wakes up in the middle of the night from a scary dream, climbs out of bed to find me sitting on the couch with the lamp on reading a book in the middle of the night, and as she's rubbing her eyes and holding her blankie and teddy bear says, "Mommy I wanna be wif you. I hadda bad dream." She crawls onto my lap and promptly falls back asleep, her head of toussled hair resting on my neck and shoulder, her tiny fingers hugging her bear. She is an angel that I feel humbled to have.

Especially when she's asleep.