Eighteen years ago a little baby was about to make its way into the world. Expecting our first child, we had spent months picking out just the right name for a little boy. Using my full nesting powers I hand stitched enough tiny fish to string a border around the entire nursery. Though baby would come a week before the due date, Hubby and I were ready. And as the final push passed, and we waited for little Ethan's arrival announcement, we heard the doctor exclaim, "It's a healthy baby GIRL!"
Though her birth is about the only time she has been early for anything ever- she hasn't stopped surprising us, amazing us, and making us laugh nearly every day of the last 18 years. Looking back to my journal entry on the day she was born I wrote, "Part of me is sad because she has been all mine for the past 9 months, and now I have to share her with the world."
As fate would have it, she turned out to be our only child and in ways more than she will ever know, she taught me to relax, to play, to heal, and to walk with the most certainty against the strongest currents. I now understand why so many people tell new moms, "It goes by so very fast", because indeed time gathers its moments and slips forward in a hurry.
In the next few months, she will graduate high school and go to college. In the afternoon, when she is not at home, I listen to the silence. I try to imagine what this house will sound like without the whirr of a hair dryer, Nikki Minaj wars with her Dad, and her voice as it sings above her guitar strumming. I smile thinking of her in September, venturing 300 miles away to a new chapter in a big city chasing after her dreams.
A beautiful post for a beautiful daughter. Hope she had a wonderful day and that all of her dreams come true! Deb
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