Fifteen years! Where did the time go?

At this moment fifteen years ago I was hanging out at the hospital waiting for #1 to arrive.  In my dreams this baby arrived early, after a very short labor and was a tiny little boy.

Ha!

I got none of that.  (You could be reading this at 11:30 at night and my first sentence would still be true!)

Baby was 3 days past due.  OK.  Maybe baby was 3 days early.  It all depends on which due date you believe was the right one. 

Daddy had played golf on the day baby was due (according to the doctor); thus, Daddy had a pretty wicked sunburn when baby arrived.

Mommy had gone shopping on due date.  It was hot out there and I was miserable.  And then two days later I went looking for rose bushes at the garden center with my family.  Yup, that was even more miserable.  But what was I going to do?  Sit at home in the air conditioning and hope something happened?

Back to the story. . .labor was long.  Twenty four hours long in fact.  The baby was hardly tiny.  Nope, close to nine pounds of baby there.  And it was a girl.

So much for my dreams eh?

Today it's hard to believe that this grown up girl started out so small.  She's taller than her mother (and loves that very much).  She hardly had hair when she was born. . .now it's down to her waist.  For the longest time her feet were so small we thought she'd never learn to walk on those little things.  Now her feet are, erm, bigger.

She sings.  She plays piano.  She reads (all. the. time.)  She's an excellent student.  She loves to talk.  She always did.  She loves to be with older people--it's like she's more comfortable with them than any other age.  She is mature beyond her years.

And she's still my little girl.  The one who sat on the tall stool in preschool, wearing her little peach dress and tennis shoes with the tie-dyed laces all untied, with her messy little head of curly hair, just waiting for the photographer to be ready to take her picture.  (A snapshot was taken by a student photographer--and I cherish that little snapshot that showed the rest of the story)  Yes, she's the one who wasn't sure she was ready to go to kindergarten. And the one who had a moment's hesitation about heading off to high school--a different school from the kids she had gone to school with for the previous nine years.

My grown up little girl.

Happy birthday!

(Play the song little girl. . .it's from 15 years ago like you!)