Sweet 16

My sweet blonde child turned sixteen on Wednesday. It’s cliché to say but the time has really flown by. It seemed like just yesterday that she was cute and little and running around the house in diapers chattering to herself. Now she’s taller than me and a beautiful, smart, and funny young woman who is old enough to drive. Yipes!

I’d like to think my daughter and I have a special relationship. I have lucked out in a big way, so far, during these teenage years. With a few exceptions she seems to have missed out on that normal teenage attitude. Yes, we fight about her grade and I know there are times when she’d love to tell me where to go, but 98% of the time we get along. She’s a special kid; she always has been.

This year in school she took photography. She’s learning how to take photos on a regular 35mm SLR camera and develop black and white film. She’s taken some interesting photographs and has a unique perspective in many of them. It brings back memories of when she as about three years old. We gave her one of those disposable cameras to play with. It was pretty easy to use so we just let her go with it. When she had gone through all the exposures we turned it in to Walgreens to develop. I figured the photos would be horrible. Imagine our surprise when we got back the pictures and they were amazing. She had posed her stuffed Blue and Magenta from Blues Clues in a yellow sand bucket. She had also lined up all her red-haired Barbie’s (3 of them) named “the Jami’s” and taken their picture. She had taken pictures of the dog and my foot. Pretty amazing for a little kid.

I know I sound like the typical gushing parent. I’m okay with that. I think everyone should gush about their kids every now and then. I’m proud of what my little girl has become. I know what she went through after her father and I divorced and how hard life was for us at times. She had to deal with things that a kid probably shouldn’t. Because we don’t have family close by and her father lives out-of-state we have pretty much been on our own for the past ten years. Sometimes it has felt like we were on a long roller coaster ride financially and emotionally but we were always sitting next to each other holding hands. We have always been there for each other.

I am grateful that I have this young woman in my life. I am proud to call her my daughter and hope I have done right by her as her mother. In a couple of years, she’ll be going off to college and start living life on her own. It will be sad and difficult for both of us but I know she’ll shine because I’ve seen her do nothing less all of her life.