Smarty Shoes

In my limited experience in parenting (only 16 months), there have been times where I have been able to hit "pause" in the moment and simply admire the brilliance/cuteness/ innocence/beauty of my child. These moments have smacked me in the face, so to speak, more than any other moments in my life. They are smackable twofold. First, they are so sweet and pure that my heart soars from happiness and love when they happen. Second, I couldn't have imagined parenthood being this great.

Today, I experienced one of those moments of genius.

The Moment: At around 10:30 this morning, Mae started to getting antsy and it coincided with about the time that I was getting things ready to drop Mae off at Johanna's. I said to Mae, "Mae, if you want to go to Grandma's you need to get your shoes on." She looked at me with understanding. I then followed up with, "Your shoes are on the stairs." Off Mae waddled. In my mind, I didn't really expect her to fully register what I said and thought that she was off to play some more with her toys. Two seconds later Mae is standing in front of me with her shoes in her hand and says, "shoes." I then said to her, "You need to sit down to get your shoes on." At that point I sat down on the kitchen floor to put them on. Mae - far smarter than me - didn't want to sit on the floor and instead waddled over to her little chair and sat down and put her feet out.

I, of course, put the shoes on not knowing what to say but thinking to myself that my girl is one smarty pants, or smarty shoes, as in this case.