My Children Made me This Way

I missed D’s birthday post on her birthday so I thought I would do it now

..better late than never..

My oldest Monster..where to start..

She came into the world hard, 23 hours of labor almost 8 of pushing with a bruise that covered most of the back of her head, but she was the rare pretty baby..she was beautiful from the start. When they handed her to me I knew what it meant to hold your heart outside of yourself.

Sweet and shy and easy to blush. She is quiet, always has been. Slow to warm up and trust. She watches the world with thoughtful eyes before she takes a step into it. She is careful, cautious almost to a fault. Sometimes you have to nudge her into new things.  But once she steps into it she shines.  She has this smile that lights up the room, once you can coax it out of her.

She is the oldest great grandchild as well as grandchild on both sides, the only girl in a long string of boys on her Dads side.  Another blonde with blue eyes who looks nothing like me, she is her Daddy’s little girl in all senses of the word.

But the little is starting to pass..she is almost as tall as me. And the girl is becoming a young woman. She is looking more and more grown up.  There are more and more glimpses of the woman she will be one day peeking out from inside the girl that she is, I can see her slipping back and forth between the two. Shades and shadows that are mingling till one day it will be glimpses of the little girl that I am catching instead.

Ready or not…my Sunshiney Girl is now 13.

  So this is what makes little Monsters giggle and one older girl Monster roll her eyes on the morning of the last day of school for the year.  They were already bouncing around like lunatics this morning so  thought I would give them a theme song to do it too. And, well..Alice Cooper this is what you get from a Mommy who used to headbang herself into whiplash on a regular basis. I gave a demonstration this morning on proper technique..I think I need an Excedrin now.

    But I digress…We live in Southern Missouri, and here school runs August to May, barring any snow days (having moved here from near Syracuse NY we use that term is used very tongue in cheek in our house) and today is the absolute very last day of school. The house was a buzz with excitement. Not only is it the last day, it’s a half day..

(Okay, another tangent here) I am totally not sure I understand what the point of that is, but every school seems to do it. Is it to give us parents a last little reprieve so that we can mourn the passing of semi-quiet days? To taunt the children and make them a little more riled up? To prolong the angst of 13 year olds everywhere?

  ..and the Monsters were in rare form this morning. They discussed loudly what they plan to do all summer. There will be lots of bubble blowing, frog catching, bug bite getting, poison ivy avoiding, swimming, zooing, ice cream getting, computer playing, movie watching, sister annoying (that was implied), side-walk-chalking, staying up late, library going, driving crazy of Mommy (that is a given) this summer.  Notice there was no talk of sleeping in or quietness..Yep, I am pretty sure I need an Excedrin now. Heck, better make it two.