Yesterday, while at Target, Noelle was happily jogging alongside the shopping cart in her heavy snow boots. We were breezing by the children’s clothing section when an older man stopped and said, “Well, you sound like a horse!”

Clearly this guy didn’t read my post about how to speak to children.

Before I could react in any way, Noelle stopped and said in an assertive tone, “Why did you say that to me?”

The man was so caught off guard that he made a chuckle-gasp and nervously walked away.

I honestly think my 3-soon-to-be-4 year old daughter intimidated him.

Now, I don’t really think this man was trying to offend my daughter or me. To be honest, her boots are loud and kind of clunky when she runs. However, the word “horse” didn’t sit well with either of us. Maybe simply saying, “I like the way those boots sound when you run,” or “I bet those boots are great in the snow,” would have been better than comparing my little girl to a giant four-legged mammal.

I made a promise to my children as well as myself that I would no longer let people say ignorant comments in their direction without kindly and politely correcting them. I think this is how we get around this problem as a whole– we have to address it and teach people how to treat us.

But my daughter beat me to the punch.

And again, rather than apologizing to her or merely answering her innocent question, the older man simply laughed and walked away.

She wasn’t trying to be cute. She was trying to teach you how to treat her. You failed her lesson.

As a society, it seems we don’t exactly know how to react to strong-willed, independent women. There’s a bit of a double-standard. We want our girls to be outspoken, brave, and confident, but if they get too outspoken, too brave, or too confident, they begin to offend, intimidate, and off-put.

And let the record state that there is a fine line between outspoken and bossy, brave and reckless, and confident and cocky. That’s why we’ve got to teach them young, teach them early, teach them now, how to be a perfectly powerful female.

I almost understand this man’s bewilderment. You do not have to travel too far inside a store with a toy department and see what little girls are supposed to be playing with and supposed to be learning and supposed to be acting like. I made a trip inside Toys R Us last night to scout some ideas for Noelle’s upcoming birthday, and I left empty-handed and annoyed.

The “Girl Section” was made up of every kind of house-cleaning or cooking replica you could imagine, plus grocery carts, baby dolls that pee and poop, and vanities with make-up and hair styling tools.

I get it. Noelle likes that stuff, too, but she’s not a one-trick pony (notice, pony is kinder than horse). She enjoys all kinds of toys and games, so I thought I would browse the “Boy Section” for a few ideas.

Let’s see. She could get a plastic workbench with some plastic tools that don’t really do anything. She could have some Legos or dinosaurs or cars with flames up the sides.

I did find a small section of “girl” Legos that were of course bright pink and purple, and the kit was designed to build a castle for a princess.

So what’s the big deal? I will just buy her the “boy” blocks and tell her to go to town. However, her poor mind has already been brainwashed by what she has witnessed in stores and on commercials so that at the age of 3 and 11/12ths, she knows that those are “boy” toys and girls “shouldn’t” play with them.

I came to the conclusion that the majority of toys for kids these days really just suck. I’m sorry, but they do…especially the toys that we have easy access to at local stores. I honestly feel worse for boys. What do you buy your son if he has no interest in playing with tools or race cars or super heroes?

I have a new mission as a mother, and that is to introduce my children to toys that require them to think, to create, to invent, to draw their own conclusions. I’m not going to take away my girls’ princess stuff anytime soon, but I do plan to make a very conscious effort to vary the types of toys that we bring into our home.

I am currently researching some items for Noelle’s birthday, and here are some front-runners that I think mix engineering, creativity, math, science, and inventiveness with a kind of softness that girls naturally gravitate toward.

Roominate: A Building Toy for Girls

GoldieBlox and the Spinning Machine 

B. Pop Arty Snap Beads – even though this is a jewelry kit, it doesn’t have gaudy colors and silly characters.

Kiwi Crate Monthly Subscription – We are about to receive our first monthly craft box, and I know we’re going to love it.

The right toys are out there, but we might have to look a little harder than Toys R Us and Target.

Speaking of looking harder, I am currently in pursuit of the Elsa Ice Castle dress from Frozen (I told you I wasn’t taking away her princess stuff). The Disney Store has been sold out online for quite some time, but I could always buy one from Ebay for $180 (yeah…no).

This week on Facebook, I have had a lot of friends sharing a link to a beautifully written article by Sarah Bessey. The blog post details the feelings of a mother who is at the point in her life where she will not be having any additional children. Merely reading the article gives you what she calls “the ache,” the feeling you have in the pit of your stomach as you realize you will never experience “baby things” again.

As I was reading her article, I found my throat tightening and my eyes welling with tears, but for a different reason. I will be 30 years old in about six months. My husband and I have two beautiful girls, and we very much hope and plan to expand our family in the near future. It is what we pray for, what we dream of, and what we desire– more chairs around our table.

I was feeling a different sort of ache, however. The ache you feel when you realize that by bringing another child into this world, the one who has been your baby for, in our case, 15 months, will no longer be “the baby.” She will be the big sister. Life as she knows it will be over.

As a mother of two who hopes to be a mother of three (maybe four, but I don’t want to be greedy), I wonder if I have enough arms to hold them all at once. If I have enough hands to guide them safely all at once. If I have enough patience, enough energy, enough time.

If I will be enough, for all of them, all at once.

While my heart is starting to ache for that new baby smell, that sack-of-potatoes snuggle, that smile-in-their-sleep thing they do so well, my gut is aching for her new baby smell, her sack-of-potatoes snuggle, her smile-in-her-sleep thing she did so well.

These days, she grows more by the minute. She learns more by the hour. She wakes up a new clothing size. She looks more like a kid and less like a baby. That’s precisely the trouble with babies– we can’t figure out how to keep them little forever.

“Time for another one!” people like to say.

But I can’t replace this baby with a new baby. I can’t recreate her or find a replacement. As much as I yearn for a new baby, I yearn for my old baby, too.

I know I felt this way before we welcomed Charlotte as the new baby and said goodbye to Noelle as the old baby. I know I had reservations and worries. Somewhere, deep down, I’m still feeling that ache, too. There’s no medicine, no cure, no remedy.

God-willing, this chapter as a family of four will begin to close, and I pray we are blessed with more children.

But I predict that as I’m holding a new, beautiful, third baby in my arms, I will feel the ache as my old babies, both of them, wear their big sister shirts and walk away.

Right now, my oldest daughter is three years old, but really she’s more like three & three-fourths, which really means she is about thirteen. Not a day goes by (it seems) that I don’t hear “You’re the meanest mom ever!”

The first time she said it, it hurt. I cried. I thought, “What am I doing wrong?” “Why would she say that?” “Look at all I do to love her and help her grow, and that is what I get?”

The second time she said it, I found it annoying.

The third time she said it, I wore a smirk on my face.

Now, since I have stopped counting how many times she has said it, I simply fist pump the air and adjust my mom jeans because yes, I have arrived.

I am now the meanest mom in the world.

By simply asking her to put away her toys when she is done with them, to brush her teeth, to eat vegetables, to, you know, get dressed, I have earned the highly coveted title.

It was just that easy.

But, I know it is only a matter of time before she will be thanking me. Thanking me for all of the chores I made her do against her will. Thanking me for teaching her manners and respect. Thanking me for not letting her wear Crocs with socks (my gawd).

When she wants to be “cool” and hang out with the girls who party and drink underage and dress like rejected Bratz dolls…and I say absofreakinglutely not…she’ll thank me later.

When she tries to wear a shirt to school that is too short, too tight, too see-through, too profane, too adult, too juvenile, too wrong…and I pull out my Ugly Christmas Sweater party attire for her to wear instead…she’ll thank me later.

When she thinks that the only things that define beauty are make-up and her bra size (sorry, Child, but you’re doomed)…and I tell her that beauty is defined by the image of her soul…she’ll thank me later.

When she thinks she has done the best she can do…and I push her to run just a little further, to work just a little harder, to dream just a little crazier…she’ll thank me later.

When she falls in love with the bad boy, the rude boy, the loser boy, the apathetic boy…and I tell her to wait for the man who treats her like his equal and not his princess, like his gift and not his prize, like her father has treated me…she’ll thank me later.

When she calls me in tears, stressed out because of money, because of work, because of life…and I tell her this, too, shall pass…she’ll thank me later.

When she has a daughter of her own who gives her grief over the smallest little request, who challenges her like she never thought possible, who calls her the meanest mom in the world (!!)…and I try my hardest not to tell her “I told you so”…she’ll thank me later.

For now, I’m the meanest mom in the world, and I plan to stay that way…

until she thanks me later.

Since starting this blog and advertising my posts on Facebook, I have received a lot of positive feedback, a lot of virtual fist pumps from other young moms who can relate to what I write about, and I have also received a few questions.

One question I have received more than once is “How do you do it?”

This, in and of itself, is a loaded question with a lot of possible responses. Elaborate.

“How do you do it all?”

Clearly this question comes from complete strangers, because anyone who knows me personally knows that I do not, in fact, do it all. If you’ve been to my house, you have seen piles of laundry waiting to be folded and put away. You have seen dishes from yesterday’s dinner just waiting for “the maid” to do them. You have seen unfinished projects and unfinished rooms, leftovers from my last “cleaning & organizing spree” that I was never able to complete.

If you were here right now, you would see me ignoring my 3 year old as she jumps from the armrest of the couch to the cushions, yelling “Cannon ball!”

That’s what this blog is all about. I don’t do it all. I can’t do it all. We can’t, as women, do it all…as much as we like to believe we can.

I shouldn’t say can’t. We are so powerful that we can do anything we put our minds to doing, but if you have ever found yourself doing it all, you probably have found that you can’t do it all very well. Something suffers. Something doesn’t get as much attention as it should. Something turns out poorly because you were rushing around like a crazy person.

And it sucks if that “something” is a batch of chocolate chip cookies.

But it really sucks if that “something” is your child.

(Note: I just told the 3 year old to stop cannon balling on the couch)

So, let’s stop, take a breath, and focus on what we can do.

We can answer the door to the UPS guy in a bath towel while holding one child on the hip and keeping the other one from yanking the towel off from the floor.

We can manage to stir something hot on the stove while singing Disney songs to the banging of plastic bowls and mixing spoons.

We can buy a cart full of groceries and smush them around a cart full of children like some sort of human Tetris game.

We can change a diaper with one hand and hold a cell phone to our ear with the other and restrain a wild, nakey-butt baby with our legs.

We can kiss their boo-boos, hold their hands, and dry their tears.

We can read the stories, find the blankies, and scare the monsters away.

We are the mamas.

There’s so much we can do when we think we can’t do anything.