Baby Love

Teen Angel celebrated her fifteenth birthday yesterday? When did I get so old...um..I mean, when did she get so grown up? Can she really be fifteen? In one more year, will she actually be dating and driving a car? Lord help us all when she gets on the highway. Lord help her dad when she starts dating. Actually, you should probably pray for any boy who has to get past her dad in order to take the girl on a date. She's so ready for all of this and I am sooooo not ready. Am I the only one who feels like parenting a teenager is like riding an out of control Amtrak train in the middle of Siberia? It's all moving so fast.

She moved quickly from the very beginning with labor pains that started ten minutes apart and burst through my pelvis at what felt like 90 miles per hour. She was birthed so fast I didn't even get my prepaid epidural. And yes, I WAS disappointed about the lack of pain medication. Don't believe any of that hocus pocus about natural birth not being that bad. It freakin' hurts. Two and a half hours of labor, and we were done! In no time at all she was washed and swaddled and I was being rolled over and checked for hemorrhoids. Ah, the humiliation that comes with pregnancy and childbirth. There are so many people who look at your hoo hoo and backside before, during and after childbirth that you start to feel like a display at the Smithsonian. I thought then that the really hard work was over. Little did I know that giving birth is the easiest part of parenting.

The freight train we dubbed Teen Angel zipped through those first few months with early milestones. Tossing her pacifier at six months, walking at nine months. She never really crawled very much. Once she figured out she could move, she stood up and walked. Well, she didn't walk much either, she ran everywhere. She had more speed than balance, bouncing off of walls and door frames like a drunk in a fun house. That girl was in a hurry. In no time at all, she was hopping on a school bus with a big bow in her hair and a gap toothed grin. She lost her teeth early, too. Elementary school brought friends, books and boys. Her first crush was in second grade. Puberty and middle school weren't far behind, and suddenly we arrived at high school. She is a freshman now. How did that happen? It's all moving way too fast.

In three and a half years she will head off to college to get a degree, become wildly successful and support her poor old aging parents who had to sell everything they own for her college education and Big Star jeans. She will likely leave our home in...just..three..and..a..half..years. Gulp. Could someone please slow down this train...just a little bit? I want her to love high school as much as I did and to enjoy college (not in the party like a rock star with every frat boy in sight way), so I will try to hide my "Oh my God my baby isn't a baby" angst and smile and cheer through the next few years. But Lordy this is hard. This really is tougher than the whole, no epidural, hemorrhoid part.