We can all learn a thing or two from a 2 year old.

Yesterday H was full of so many words and actions that just melted my heart. Sometimes I forget she is only 2.

We took an adventure to a farm and ranch heritage museum I saw a sign for. Since the whole week was essentially the kids and I alone in a town I was unfamiliar with trying to find things to keep them relatively occupied, H so appropriately dubbed each day as an "adventure."

While we were walking to the dairy barn to watch the milking if a cow, baby B in the ergo, Miss H put her hand into mine and said, "Momma. Momma, listen to me. It's important. Do you understand me?"

"You have something important to tell me," I said back to her.

"You're my hero. I just love you so much."

I could have cried. Died.

I didn't even know she knew the word "hero".

So, smiling, I asked her softly, "What does hero mean, love?"

She didn't skip a beat as she told me, "I love you so so so much."

Yeah, I will take that. These are the moments, I tell you, that make it all worth it. That make the screaming fits and frequent night wakings more than okay. That reassure me that treating my child with respect and love instead of being an authoritarian figure who expects immediate obedience and compliance the right thing.

So we walked into the dairy barn together where H excitedly recalled our trip to the farm of the family we purchase our milk and eggs from. As she happily chatted to me about how fun it had been to see the cows there, she stopped when a lady asked the man at what age calves are weaned from their mothers.

"What does wean mean?" H asked.

"It's when an animal stops nursing," I explained.

"Oh," she paused for a second and then scooted close to me on the bench. "I'm never going to wean."

I smirked and patted the side if her botto as Eloise so calls it. "No doubt."

H was very interested in what the man was telling everyone about the dairy cows while baby B and a girl a month younger than him had a nursing gymnastics competition. I was thankful to have a kind momma face to smile at and chuckle about the hilarity of nursing a toddler.

"Do you know what they do to dairy cows when they are no longer being used for milk?" The gentleman asked his audience.

"I don't think we want to know," one mother responded as she clasped her hands over her preschooler's ears.

The man either intentionally ignored her or legitimately didn't hear her because he didn't miss a beat telling us, "They are slaughtered for their meat."

The preschooler shrieked, his sibling screamed "no!" and my sweet girl said, "oh, yum! I love fresh cow meat!"

At that point pretty much everyone in the audience laughed. Other than the appalled family. But really, what were the expecting?

Anyway, I love this age. H questions everything. She's opinionated. She loudly verbalized her thoughts. Like that afternoon when we were venturing to Old Navy and a father was yelling at his crying toddler, "Suck it up all ready! Stop crying! You did this to yourself!"

My bold girl looked right at the man as I tried to quickly usher her past and said "He is sad. Your a mean papa."

Yeah, my heart swelled with pride. What a sweet, caring girl to realize the boy was in distress. How insightful to know yelling wasn't helping. And how extremely brave and innocent to call it like it is without hesitation.

If I've never said it before, I truly hope to grow up to be as amazing as my little girl. She teaches me more about life in one day than ever I could learn from anyone else or from any book.

I adore my kids.