Nine Years Old!

You see this little girl? She is my baby. And she is turning nine years old tomorrow. I don't know how or when it happened. When she was born, I was 22 and Dan had just turned 23. We lived in a dark, wood-paneled basement apartment with a kitchen the size of a closet. I had been working for about 18 months and Dan was still in school. Dan had never changed a diaper in his life. We had not read every baby book on the market. We had not had long, intellectual discussions on our parenting philosophies. Taylor was the one that made us parents. So, being the first child, Taylor has been the one experimented upon. We have been hard on her. We have let her down. But always, always, always, we have loved her. She has taught us how to be parents, and we are continuing to learn as we go.

I adore my Taylor Bear. And it breaks my heart to seeing her growing up so fast. Almost every day is a new reminder that she is getting older and venturing further off into a world over which I have no control. There are boys giving her notes, girls who are catty at recess, problems that seem too big for her to solve, an already-present pressure to look a certain way.

But she will be wonderful, no doubt. She is nurturing, thoughtful, sensitive, competitive, daring, bright, fun, and simply sweet. I have every confidence that my Taylor is a superstar. She can and will do great things. I can't believe that half of her childhood is spent. In another nine years, she will be moving on. It breaks this mother's heart.