I'm just getting around to it, but yesterday, August 6th, was my oldest daughter Katey's 18th birthday. Oh my. I don't even know what to say really. I think I'm in shock. That, and she's going to College a couple of weeks! I'm having a way harder time, internally, with all this that I ever expected. I love my Katey. She is my first-born child. As it goes with first-borns in multiple child families, we parents tend to remember more details about their younger years.
Some things I remember (I probably shouldn't do this because it's going to make me cry but here goes):
She looked like a boxer who lost a fight when she first came out. Katey was what we call "sunny side up" and had a fight with a pelvic girdle on her way into the outside world - big scrape on her head and a bent up nose. She got better.
She laughed a lot when she was a baby and loved singing.
She rolled before she crawled - yes, rolled from one side of the room to the other, ha!
She had a bald spot on the back of her head for quite a while from wearing the hair off shaking her head back and forth in the crib.
I remember the first time she showed up next to our bed, from the crib bed she had climbed out of! aaagghh! Time for a "big girl bed."
Poor Katey had sinus problems her whole young childhood and always sounded like she had a cold when she talked. It was kinda cute really.
She was very very girly when she was little - that was before Vans, black t-shirts and green streaks in her hair.
She has always been very smart - still is. What can I say? She had to inherit something from me! :)
OK, that's enough of that - I can't handle it any more. So, happy birthday Katey. I love you very much. I can't help that I'm a little scared for you. This whole "letting go" thing is very very hard for me. God have mercy on me and help me handle this well.
"Then, if we cannot as yet think alike in all things, at least we may love alike. Herein we cannot possibly do amiss." John Wesley
"Keep your eyes on the crucifix, for Jesus without the cross
is a man without a mission, and the cross without Jesus
is a burden without a reliever." Fulton J. Sheen
"...I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be
completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self." Henri Nouwen