My Cowbird

Mama cowbirds wait until a bird of a different species has left her nest unattended, then sneak over real quick to lay one of their own eggs before flying off, ditching the egg for other birds to raise. Presumably so they can go out partying and stuff.

"I coulda sworn all of these were blue when I left..."

There's no mistaking a cowbird chick in the nest. Cowbird eggs have an unusually fast incubation period that allows cowbird chicks to hatch before the native chicks, giving them a head start in life. As a result, cowbird chicks are pretty obnoxious looking next to their foster siblings.

"What, I'm just big boned. You gonna finish that?"

My sister says I'm built like a hummingbird. It's true. I'm tiny. I'm tiny enough that total strangers like to stop me on the street and tell me I need to eat more.

And it's not just that I'm skinny. I'm built hummingbird-size all over, all delicate and bird-boned. With one notable nine-month exception, I've been the same size and shape since I was 14. Which, for scale reference, is about the same size and shape as the average 12-year-old girl.

On the left, next to my actual 12 year old girl. From Poetic Images.

Over the last few years, puberty hit Miss G full force, shooting her up a few inches past me, and adding a bunch of decidedly non-hummingbird-like curves all over the place. At my sister's house one day, Miss G ran in, burst out one of her chirpy explosions about something or other, and dashed back out again, maybe giving me a quick hug in the middle of that someplace.

My sister watched her leave, laughing, and said: "She's like a cowbird next to your little hummingbird body."

It's true. Miss G is nothing like me in build.

Still me on the left.

She's nothing like me in personality, either. In fact, she is so little like me in every possible way that if she weren't so exactly like her dad, I'd be concerned that someone pulled a cowbird on me at the hospital.

Because of this, raising Miss G has been sort of... bemusing. I know her better than anyone else does, and yet she remains an alien mystery even to me.

I don't look at her and feel the pull of the familiar. I feel like I'm raising someone else's chick, a chick who looks more like a different species every day. I don't love her any less for it though. Instead, I find myself curious about what she'll do next.

I expect more parents start feeling this way about their teenagers; I've felt like this from her birth. Like the universe just handed me this small bright spirit and said "Here, see what you can do with this."

"Well, okay. If you're really sure."

How I feel about being a mother hasn't changed in the last 14.5 years. I'm honored that she chose me. Honored, and maybe confused that she thought I was the best person for the job, and definitely unsure myself that I'm up to the challenge.

And my cowbird, she thrives. I'm glad she ended up in my nest.

Echoes (part 1)

Miss G is so much like her father, it hurts. Not because I miss him, or miss what we had together, or because I’m nostalgic for what could have been. It hurts because the similarity nauseates me. 

Her likeness to him, both physically and mentally, repels me. Even after over a decade apart from him, even though she is an entirely separate person, her inherent him-ness triggers my protective instincts into screaming get out, get out, GET OUT. The more him-like she gets, the more I feel myself withdraw.

It’s awful.

It’s even more awful because I am absolutely crazy about that kid. She is this amazing, bright spirit who I’m pretty sure will conquer the world. By some miracle, she seems to have gotten all of the good qualities from both her parents, and avoided the worst parts of us. 

In her, I see the gorgeous, untwisted potential of everything her father could have been and should have been and very nearly was staring out at me from my own brown eyes. In her, I also see the capacity for the self-destruction that haunts her father. It terrifies me. 

I see the total disregard for personal boundaries and insanely controlling personality that came close to swallowing me whole. I see his inability to commit mixed with his frightening capacity for single-minded obsession brewing within his daughter, the same elements that combined into the impossible, heady, terrible maelstrom that holds him captive still. I see his same brilliance and his same lack of focus snarling in her constantly. I see courage teetering dangerously close to foolhardiness, and pride edging toward alienating arrogance.

The whirlwind dichotomy isn’t tearing her apart like it did him. Not yet. On my good days I imagine that my hard-won understanding of her father’s true nature enabled me to parent her in ways that honor that legacy. Without knowing the worst possible outcome in advance, maybe I would have parented differently. Maybe I wouldn't have known how to avoid it. Maybe I would have inadvertently crammed all her amazingness into a self-cannibalizing pressure-cooker, doomed to explode someday, taking all of us down with it.

On my less-good days, I wonder if the monster will still get her in the end.

Thirteen

My daughter turns thirteen this week.

There's an endearing, exasperating naivete to this age. She wears eyeliner but doesn’t wash her hair without reminders. She's self-conscious enough to ask me if she can bleach her mustache, but not enough to bleach it regularly. Sometimes she leaves the house looking like a million bucks. Other times I turn her around before she hits the breakfast table because I cannot stand to look at the same sloppy gym shorts for even one meal more.

Her awkwardness is mixed with a maturity far beyond her years. We're moving at the end of the school year. She tells me her dad offered to fix up a room at his house. I say, "That's an option, if you want to stay here and do that instead." She laughs, slings me a sidelong look that says I should know better. "Mama, he could have fixed it up for me whenever, if he wanted to. I'm ready for a new adventure." She does not say this with hurt defensiveness, or snotty pre-teen attitude, but with indulgence. She’s been to the magic show. She knows all the tricks, watches with eyes straight ahead while a secret smile teases her lips. And I look at her, wondering yet again where this amazing, unquenchable bright spirit came from. Surely not from me.

There’s no mistake, though. Her chin is definitely mine; her smile is her father’s. Her eyes are my brown; their mischievous glint is his. As childish curves melt away revealing new profiles, my hands emerge from her wrists. But the way they move-- fast, darting, confident-- that’s her dad all over.

She’s inching a bit taller than me every day now. Some days she mocks me with it, superiority in every line of her. Other times, her face crumples and she buries a mournful “I don’t want to be taller than you” in my neck. I don’t point out how she has to slump to fit there; I just hug her and pretend not to notice.

When we’re swimming, or if my shirt hitches up, she touches the tiny tattoo on my back, two  hearts entwined from a single line. When it was sharp and new, she’d cry “Your heart, Mama!”-- excited every time, as only a toddler can be. I’d answer “Yep! That heart is for you and me, kiddo. We’re a team no matter what.” She’d nod with wide, solemn eyes.

Now her long, unfamiliar fingers trace it for comfort, like this labyrinth might hold her answers.

“I love this tattoo,” she says.
“You and me, kid,” I say.
“You and me, Mama,” she answers, comforted by the familiar litany, by the things that remain true even under puberty’s onslaught.

It's taken every bit of the past thirteen years to learn this is fleeting. Kid problems like slurping spaghetti and forgetting homework are on their way out with a jaunty wave. Instead-- enter birth control. Enter cars, relationships, careers, debates on college vs trade school vs traveling.

A new morning is visible from the porch now, just beyond the looming teens corner. Survive that uncertain landscape and we're there.

I forgot. Even even though everyone told me, has been telling me for years how fast it goes. I never believed them. Eighteen years sounded like a life sentence when I was pregnant and terrified at twenty-two. Now it seems like barely enough time.

One True Thing

Dan & I went hiking with friends and dragged Miss G along. She ditched us on the return trek, ranging way ahead in her typical impatient way.

After a bit I thought I heard faint yelling over the high winds. I stopped walking, listened hard, checked my intuition-- yep, that was my kid. There was no pain in her voice, so I didn’t think she was hurt. But fear was there. Fear edging toward panic.

I wasn’t worried about not finding her; it wasn’t too hot and you can see for miles out there. She had water and common sense, plus Dan can rescue anyone from anywhere if needed. (God, I love that guy.) But hearing your kid in anguish and not knowing how to get to her is--- well, pretty awful. I should have a more eloquent phrase but it’s too yuck to dwell on long enough to find better words.

She popped up a few hilltops over. Seeing her body limned in desperation instead of relief, I realized she hadn’t heard us yelling back. We shouted louder, waved and screamed and jumped around, but the wind took our voices the wrong way and her panicked eyes skittered right past without catching.

We waited; she was facing us. Surely she’d see us any second. Annnny second now. We were so close. And she did start walking after a bit, but in a wandering way. In a lost and heartbroken, heartbreaking way. And in the wrong direction.

I caught up to her in just a few minutes. She didn’t see me until I was almost on top of her. She almost took me down with a tackling hug; she hasn’t cried that hard since the her first weeks in daycare. I held her tight and told her the same thing I told her then: “It’ll be okay, I’d never leave you, I will always come back for you.”

And it’s one of those moments where life folds over onto itself, and instead of twelve she’s not even two and we’re at daycare and she won’t let me leave because her dad left one day and still hadn’t come back and that was weeks ago so who knew what the world’s rules were now. Other kids cry with anger or loss when their moms dropped them off; mine screamed with terror. I’d say, “It’s okay, it’s okay” but she could hear that I didn’t believe it myself and just cry harder. I clenched my jaw and her shaking little body close, all anguish and hot tears tucked under my chin, both of us exhausted from our new lives and her new nightmares, next to tears myself because you can’t see your child in pain and not feel it yourself and knowing nothing would make this better, really, nothing would bring her dad back and everything was wrong so I just started chanting the only true thing I knew: “I will never leave you, I will always come back for you, every time, always, always” until her sobs slowed into regular-kid-at-daycare sobs, then I’d give her a last hug and a big false smile and say goodbye as if everything were fine and she’d finally let me go and sometimes I could make it all the way back to the car before I was in tears myself.  

And now, a decade and many lifetimes later, surrounded by sky and cholla, the wind whipping our voices out of our mouths and replacing them with hair, Miss G covered in tears and snot, I hold her the same way, taller than me in her hiking boots, tell her the same true thing.

And she cried a lot and threw up a little and we cleaned her up and took deep breaths together and she said she’s never going ahead of us again. But I know she will and I love that about her, love that she blazes ahead, eyes bright, machete in hand to slash new paths. And, as always, am amazed/flattered/mystified that this tough-as-nails child needs me at all when she is ten times more fearless and capable than I was at her age. Maybe at any age.

Everything in the world has changed, every bit of our lives, except that one true thing that remains within and above all else: that we two are always, always, always. And for always.

On Mothers’ Day, I celebrate my strong, amazing daughter. I thank her for making me a mama. We do whatever she wants to do, because it’s her day more than mine. She gave it to me, this best gift of all gifts.

Firsts and lasts

Tonight, Miss G asked me to pluck her eyebrows for her. And I did, sharing tricks and tips along the way. It was fun and sad and beautiful all at once.

It's such a heartbreaking age, these in-between years. I love that our conversations are growing more substantial, but miss the days of tickling and swings. Every day she makes decisions with new maturity; it's inspiring and humbling to see seeds I plant daily finally sprouting and taking root. And it's a relief too, that all the life lessons I've thrown her way are indeed sinking in. Well-- some of them. At the same time, every new shoot reminds me that my giggling baby, my serious toddler, my focused kindergartner have all faded away and aren't coming back. 

Type A Sick Day

I walked into the kitchen this morning to start breakfast and found Miss G standing on the counter, rummaging in cabinets.

“I’m sick, “ she explained while hopping back down, victorious can of chicken noodle soup in hand. I sigh.

“Think you might let your  mother take care of you?” I ask. She glares and hands me the soup. I feel her forehead (definite fever), hand her some kleenex (Okay, we don’t have kleenex-- it was a roll of toilet paper) and tell her to go sit down.

With some prodding and bickering, some of us showing grouchy resistance and some of us yelling a little, I get her tucked onto the family room couch. She allows me to kiss her forehead and snuggle her a little before wriggling me off her and refolding the blankets properly (I never do it right).

I ask if she wants some peppermint tea.

“Oooh-- yeah!” she says, and hops back up.

“I WILL MAKE IT. For the love of god, child, please let me take care of you when you’re sick. It’s my job. This is what I’m supposed to be doing.”

She tucks back in, looking both chagrined and rebellious.

It’s not that I’m raising her so much as I’m hanging onto the caboose of the Miss G train-- white-kuckled, legs flying out behind me. And not because I have a timid violet personality that just bows to her whims; she is just so much more present than anyone I’ve ever encountered. Except her dad. It’s this crazy, charismatic larger-than-life thing. The whole family has it-- him, his cousins, his uncle... they’re all just freakin’ exhausting.

I bring her tea, and sit with her on the couch while she evaluates the milk/sugar ratio. She tests it, and then pats my hand.

“You make it perfect, Mama. It’s just right.”

“Great. Do you need anything else? That I can get you, that you don’t need to get up and get yourself because I am here to do it for you?”

“No, this is just right.”

“Okay, kid.”

I give her a kiss and head off to my shower. Sometimes I wonder if people who are raising Type B children are this worn out all the time. I’m ready for a nap and it’s only 7:15.

“Mama?”

“Yes, darling girl?”

“I love you. You’re the best mom ever.”

“Thanks kiddo. I work really hard at it. And I love you too.”

Dancing in the Rain

Miss G and I get positively giddy when we see clouds coming in across these too-bright desert skies. And when we get the rare thunderstorm-- like the delicious black clashing flashing goodness we had last night-- we dance together in the rain.

“Mama! It’s raining! Hurry!” When she grabs my hand, shoes and obligations scatter. Nothing exists but us and the rain.

We run to the middle of the street, then throw our heads back and open our smiles to take it in-- the taste, the smell, the chill of it. Stinging kisses dazzle our parched skin, while our bare feet get drunk on puddles. Sometimes we shriek and giggle and yell back and forth. Sometimes we stand silent, listening to the mice-feet of the rain and thunder’s kettle drums.

The kitchen’s warm yellow welcome is lost in cold lightning flashes, but we can always find our way home. We’re magic, in the rain. Connected and eternal and sacred. For those wet minutes we dance outside the world, just us. Us and the rain.

Team Us

Dan is up visiting Miss L in Reno this weekend, so Miss G and I find ourselves alone together for two whole days. She’s all lit up about it, even turned down a chance to sleep over at Miss B’s house so we could hang out. I’m all lit up about it too.

I can’t quite believe that, at twelve, she is voluntarily choosing to spend time with her mother. Even though we’ll be going clothes shopping tomorrow. But I freakin’ love it, even more because I know full parental ditch mode is approaching. So fast it’s all blurry.

So, I made her favorite bean dip and we hunkered down to James & the Giant Peach, a movie we haven’t seen since she was just a little twink. But instead of getting lost in the show, I got lost in nostalgia.

It’s like we cut and pasted ourselves out of 10 years ago and into a new coloring book-- same bean dip, same movie, same positions on the couch. But everything surrounding us is different. Vertigo-inducing different.

With a backdrop still so new I sometimes don't recognize it, tonight I’m grateful that this one thing holds true. Miss G and me. Team Us. Even if for just a little while longer.

Kids have it hard

Today was a rough day.

Miss G’s dad called about Thanksgiving. He wants to take Miss G to Florida to visit his folks. Fine, no problem. He says he wants to be there a week, Sunday to Sunday. I say, great. Then I look at a calendar.

“Uhh, that’s the weekend of the Phoenix Faerie Festival,” I say. “We’ve been planning on driving over, meeting my sister there, then visiting my folks in Tucson after. Could you fly out Monday instead?”

He scoffs, tells me tickets are cheaper if he leaves Sunday. I’m bummed, but I agree that time with him is more important. I warn him, “She might be stressed about missing school. She’s been on a kick about that lately.” He scoffs again, and buys the tickets anyway.

Miss G comes home and calls her dad. She’s in tears within about a minute and a half. He’s furious that she’s not thrilled. She’s inconsolable over missing fairies and freaked because he’s mad. Both are asking me to explain the other. (Funny I should have to; they’re exactly alike.)

Ruffled feelings were eventually smoothed, though not without many tears. And, in at least one case, ice cream.

One of the worst lies we tell our kids is how easy they have it, these are the best days, enjoy it now. Grown-ups who say this must have forgotten what it’s like to be kids, forgotten the powerless feeling of having no say in their own lives. Kids go where they have to, do what they’re told, and get in trouble if they dare to ask why.

Remember? Remember hating school, thinking your parents didn’t care when you tried to show them your new something-or-other while they were making dinner and they got irritated, not understanding why you had to go to some lame wedding on the weekend instead of riding bikes with your friend down the street?

It’s really hard being a kid. But it doesn’t take much from us to make it easier. Put down the spatula. Turn off the phone and give 30 minutes of undivided attention. Even 10 makes a difference. Hang out. Watch a cartoon. Make their day.

Listening Ears

This morning over cereal, Miss G was telling me about a dream she had last night. It’s so rare to get more than one sentence at a time out of that kid-- any kid, really, those Kings and Queens of Monosyllabia. I should be more appreciative. And I do always wonder what’s going on in that crazy, busy brain of hers. But I couldn’t concentrate on her words. I was distracted instead by how her slim her hands have become, how her face is changing shape. I see translucent echoes of the woman she’ll become (all too soon) crazily overlapping with chubby remnants of the toddler she hasn’t been in years. It’s disorienting.

I listened better when she was younger. I guess once kids are past the age of swallowing legos, we stop paying full attention. They don’t want full attention anyway; they want to play with their friends and explore their independence. They gradually fade out of our lives and form their own, popping back into full focus only at times of emotional crisis-- like needing poster board for the science fair project.

These in-between years of 7 on up were not my favorite-- but now I wish I would’ve remembered that every stage only lasts a little while, and been more appreciative of my child during The Age of Yick. While organizing photos last week, I could not believe the difference in the girls over the last year or two. They are not little girls anymore. When did that happen? I was right here.

I nodded and smiled as Miss G talked, meanwhile thinking about the person she’s turning into, imagining who she’ll be in 10 years, 20 years. I wonder what age she has to reach before I can just be in the moment and listen to what she’s saying. Or maybe it never stops, and all our parents still see 4-year-olds when we’re talking to them.

Missing Miss G

Miss G has been in Minnesota since school got out, visiting her dad’s parents. She comes home tomorrow, exactly when I’ve reached the point of not being able to stand her absence for one more day.

The world is not right without her constant chatter, her random popping in and out of the house. I don’t do well without her here. Life is dull. I get too serious, too stuck in my head.

Her being is so fiercely substantial that other people are now vapid by comparison. Her relentless logic is addictive. Her energy levels-- though exhausting-- are grounding, somehow; I can’t be flighty while bracing myself to withstand the pure optimistic force that is my daughter.

It staggers me that out of the billions of women in this world, I am the one who was chosen to raise this little sunbeam. It’s an honor I don’t take lightly.

This is crazy. I have to learn how to live without her when she goes off to college and starts a life of her own. I don’t see my feelings on this issue changing in the mere six years before that happens. How do other parents handle this? Or am I just bizarrely addicted to my child in a way that other parents aren’t?

Is it tomorrow yet?

Un-genetics

Having a kid is amazing.  I keep forgetting to be mindful of this as Miss G gets older.  A few months ago,  the two of us were sitting together at the dinner table and she was holding something and I said, surprised, "You have my hands!"

"I know!" she said, wiggling her fingers.

I never noticed before.  They were just chubby kid hands for years, but now that she's shooting up and slimming out, I can see the bone structure.  They're mine, all right.  I think that brings the total of my genetic contribution to 3 items:  she has my eye color, and my stubborn chin.  Most of her is straight from her dad, both in looks and personality.

But as much as she is like her dad, there is a sizable chunk of Miss G that is unique to her, and not from either parent.  It's a funny mix of tough-as-nails and fiercely gentle. The other night, she cleaned out the fridge and organized it.  A couple years ago, she woke me up one morning with an envelope chock full of 3x5 cards with explicit, step-by-step instructions on how to spend my morning.  She's a relentless micro-manager:  of her friends, our family pets, and of her mother, in equal measure.  She always wants to stay home from school and nurse me if I'm sick.

This is the part of Miss G that I find most intriguing, because it's such a mystery.  It's also what defines her more than any other quality, and we don't know where it came from, or how she learned to be this way.  Whenever people give me compliments about her, I always deflect them, saying, "She doesn't get that from me.  It's all her."  "Oh, but you raised her!"  Nope.  I don't take credit for raising her well, either.  She's been a grownup since birth; she was pretty much born "raised," with a few nudges from me here and there along the way. I give her the freedom to be herself, and every day since her birth has been sitting back and watching her Self emerge.  One long miracle.

Grounded by Proxy

No one told me that by grounding my kid, I effectively ground myself too.  As a kid, I didn't care about getting grounded; my preferred activity was hanging out in my room reading anyway.  But as a grownup, it really bites.  Whatever plans I had for the time that Miss G was supposed to be busy elsewhere over the weekend were switched out for being a warden instead. 

Miss G is a great kid with lots of cheerful enthusiasm but crappy impulse control.  Her common sense is slowly expanding with age, but she's just so GO GO GO, sometimes she can't stop in time.  I'm terrified this won't change before she finds herself in a situation in which it's vital she exercise better judgment... about things like drugs and sex, for instance.  (Though I'm sure she won't do either of those things.  Ever.)

So, I ground her, and hope it forces her to think about whatever impulse she couldn't control this time.  Being cooped up in one room for an entire weekend is torture for a bouncy kid like Miss G.  It leaves her no choice but to listen to her own thoughts for a while, something she doesn't make time for otherwise. I don't like grounding her one bit, but I hold myself responsible for teaching her how to slow down, pay attention, listen to her intuition, just the same as I taught her how to tie her shoes.

The most lovable freight train in the world

We spent Thanksgiving visiting Dan's grandparents in Fresno. All weekend, they kept raving about Miss G. How great her manners are! How cute her short hair is, how it suits her! How they've never seen a child so... well, enthusiastic!

Grandma's sister: "She has such a little personality!"
Grandma: "Oh, my, yes!"

Little, nuthin'.

Miss G's greatest quality-- her cheerful, unsinkable nature-- is also her most exasperating. She has trouble keeping friends, because her enthusiasm reads as bossiness. (Okay, sometimes it is actually just bossiness.) No one can keep up with her, particularly not her mama. She is always at least five steps ahead, and nothing is ever fast enough for her. She expects perfection from anyone she looks up to, and since she is a trusting soul, that is almost everyone. I'm always nervous about bringing her into restrained environments-- say, Miss L's piano lesson-- because Miss G is just plain larger than life, and that is not for everyone.

At the same time, she is so open and sweet and good-hearted. She picked flowers from the grandparents' yard and handed them out as she said goodbye. She dished out unreserved hugs all around to these people she has met a total of I think three times. She loves giving presents and spends half her allowance on goodies she can share with other people.

I always feel like I'm too hard on her... the constant reminders to chew with mouth closed, to remember please and thank you, to use her inside voice. And since Miss G is the human equivalent to a small tornado, I am constantly, constantly hauling back on the reins, trying (often with total futility) to slow down even a little her exhausting joie de vivre. I don't ever want to quench her bright little spirit, but I just plain can't keep up with her.

So, I'm encouraged by compliments from Grandpas and Grandmas (and their sisters), by comments scribbled on report cards ("A delight to have in class!" is very popular), by my sister regularly asking for recent stories about her. I figure all this means I'm doing a good job. Although I think Miss G is an amazing kid not because of my parenting, but rather in spite of it.

Miss G, you have done it again. Even though you have interrupted me about 86 times while I've been typing this, and my resulting impatience has made it extremely challenging to continue praising you to the hilt, I am just plum crazy about you, kid. Don't ever change.

xoxo

The Divine Miss G

No one tells you that for parenting to work, you have to keep falling in love with your kids over and over and over again. I have had a serious crush on my daughter this week, and a renewed appreciation for her bright spirit and cheerful attitude.

She really is the most amazing person. Not just kid, but person. Everyone who knows her will tell you. She is so good-hearted, but ferocious at the same time. She doesn't always reveal what's going on in her head, but when she does, she sums up with a cutting combination of incredible insight and minimal words. She's hardcore and bossy, but at the same time is always cheerful and optimistic.

She is nothing like me, which makes her all the more intriguing. She is like her dad in a few traits, but her overall personality is nothing like his either. She is her own thing.

I had Miss G when I was 22 and unmarried. Her dad moved out before she was 2. The two of us have had incredibly difficult times and outrageous fun in the nine years since then. I got married this past spring to Dan, who came in a package deal with a new stepdaughter, Miss L. Miss G and Miss L are pretty tight, but Miss G still wants a "real" little sister.

I say "Listen, kid. Why should I even bother having another baby, when I just nailed it perfect the first time? There is no way I could have another baby that would come even close to being as cool as you."
"Mama, listen. Here's what you do. All you have to do is move around a lot, and then put her in a crappy daycare that she hates, live in an apartment instead of a house with no yard to play in so she can't have a dog, and watch movies with her, and sing a lot in the car. And then you'll do everything with her that you and me do, and then she'll be like me."
Her delivery is very matter-of-fact, simply listing the elements as she sees them that have combined to create her persona.
"Honey, I am so sorry you went through that stuff. And so sorry it took me so long to get you a house with a yard."
"Mama. Don't cry. It's okay. That's what I'm saying, is all that stuff was good because it made me how I am and you like how I am and I like how I am. You're a good mom."
"Thanks, kiddo."
"Anyways Mama. Even if we did all that stuff for my little sister, she still wouldn't be like me, cause she'd have Dan as a dad instead of my dad, and he's a really good dad."

This does not make me feel any better.

When she was first born, everyone told me how fast it would go. And it has, as predicted, gone way too fast. She's wearing eyeshadow to school, and in my mind she's still only around 4. But I'm loving this, love watching her evolve into a self-assured and self-aware... well, I can't say "woman" yet, but maybe I could use the hated phrase "young lady." She handles herself with such grace and confidence.

More than loving my kid, I just really like her. I like that she calls me Mama still at age 11, even though she's acted like she's 32 since birth. I like the puckish glint in her eyes, that she's spirited enough to be her own person but reasonably obedient. I like that I can't tell her no about anything without a full explanation. It's exasperating sometimes, but at least I know she'll never meekly back down without a fight.

And I can't take credit, I really can't. She's been like this since birth, I swear. I had to install a lock on the outside of her bedroom door when she was 2. People look at me like I'm a monster when I say that, but it was for her own safety. I woke up in the middle of the night one night and heard something downstairs. I went down, and there's my toddler sitting and watching TV at 3 am. She's eating a bag of chips, which she opened using a butcher knife that is sitting next to her on the couch. She hadn't wanted to wake me, see, so she just took care of everything herself.
That's Miss G. Independent, but considerate. The lock got installed the next day, and the knife drawer was relocated up into the cabinets. She is so headstrong that the best I can do is give her medium-level guidance and give her advice on a regular basis. Sometimes she listens, sometimes not. I'm surprised and thankful she's as well-behaved as she is, given how strong her personality is.

I've been watching Miss G from a distance this weekend, and her beauty captures me. Every word out of her mouth amazes me, these glimpses of the woman she'll grow into are hiding behind her and I am so excited by what I see. It's like a trailer for the best movie in the world, but the movie never ends and the plot keeps getting better.