How has she changed me.... let me count the ways

The other day Dave was marveling over me cleaning up A's snotty nose, laughing about how two years ago I couldn't have done it. He wasn't joking. I can handle a lot of things with remarkable aplomb. A has handed me any number of truly gross and disgusting messes over the course of her lifetime. Most I have handled fairly well, if not without pause. There are few things that have ever stopped me in my tracks, but I learned with my stepson Keagan that snotty noses was where I had to draw the limit. Poopy diapers bring 'em on. Spit up and Puke No prob. Snotty noses....um stop..... I ah don't think so. Dave and I had an agreement with Keagan I changed all the poopy diapers and he wiped all noses.

That worked with Keagan who we saw every other weekend. It hasn't worked so well with A, who has really been my sole responsibility 24/7. So I have had to, well, adjust. I have had no choice. But the funny thing is that it hasn't been nearly as difficult as you might think. I have not just wiped snotty noses ( and more than I care to think about Thank You) I have also shared my drink with a little girl with a snotty nose. ( Just Ask Dave the sharing of the drink is big no no number two that had to go to the wayside) I have kissed a snotty slobbery teething mouth. I have kissed a candy cane sticky face. I have done a million things that I would never in a million years thought I could do.
I ask you though what can you do when the face you love most in the world is lifted to yours offering you a kiss with that tiny little mouth open. I certainly don't have what it takes to say no. Instead I assess the situation... man up and pucker up. I love my daughter so much in fact that I will indeed kiss her whenever she asks for a kiss. I would pretty much do anything for that little girl.
There are a million other changes that she has brought about... Physically and emotionally, mentally and psychologically. I haven't objected to a single one. The other day she put her foot up with a howl of pain and then tearfully made a kiss sound. You guessed it. I kissed that sucker. But then that certainly wasn't the first time that I kissed that little foot. In fact while feet never really were something I thought much about before I had my daughter they are perhaps my favorite part on that little girl. I play with and tickle and kiss and pretend to eat those little things until she begs for mercy. The little piggies have been not just introduced but are best friends of my daughter. Once again a change that I have made with little or no protest.
Motherhood has changed me so many ways. I love deeper now than I did before. I take life a little slower and I laugh at least once for every hour that my daughter is awake in the day. In short motherhood has changed me so much for the better that I can hardly measure it all. And I haven't so much as peeped in protest. As a matter of fact I owe my daughter an enormous debt of gratitude.