Twelve years

Twelve years ago today, we became parents. A tiny bundle of red-faced crying and endless neediness that somehow fast-forwarded to become this:



This is my Eldest, who turns twelve today. Boy, has it gone fast…seems like just yesterday I was sobbing like the world was ending because the enormity of what just happened hit me like a runaway freight train…this tiny, perfect creature and hang on waitasecond you mean…I…am supposed to…I mean, you people DO realize that I’m a complete screw up who still doesn’t know what she wants to be when she grows up and I haven’t changed a diaper in like twelve years and furthermore aren’t I still a kid myself and besides all that where’s the instruction manual for this thing, why is it crying, why won’t it nurse, what’s WRONG with me OHMYGAH I AM GOING TO KILL THIS POOR SWEET INNOCENT BABY WITH MY INEPTITUDE…

Everything I thought motherhood would be was destroyed by this child…and rebuilt into something better, something stronger, something deeper and wider and a hundred times more wonderful.

She’s an amazing kid. She’s brave and smart and has a wicked sense of humor. She’s kind and generous and bossy and does an awesome disdainful sigh / eye roll combination. She loves animals and flowers, doesn’t like ice cream or hot dogs, and will shamelessly eat every single pea right off the vine.

She’s an artist and a dreamer. She dreams big, and sees no logical reason why they can’t all come true.

I love being her mother.

Especially since it means I can share things like this, from her wait-wasn’t-that-just-yesterday toddler days:



Hee!