Another Year Flies By

Today is Daughter's twenty-fourth birthday.

Wow.

She has received texts, facebook wishes, cards, a letter (from me), and a visitor already.

She must be pretty special, huh.

She was a beautiful baby on her first birthday celebration at age one:

and doesn't look too shabby now:

Happy birthday to my one and only chick.

I love you more than life itself.

Your Momma

My Mini-Me

Talking about Daughter in my last blog made her sound like she was my mini-me. Well, she ain't. She has many differences, too.

The funny thing is, I always attribute those differences like my mother did mine. I tower over my mother and was even with my Daddy's height. "You get being so tall from the James' side of the family," She'd tell me.

For instance, with Daughter:

She is much smaller boned than I, like my mother.

She has very skinny feet that are almost impossible to buy shoes for, like my cousin Donna.

See what I mean?

Why can't we say about all our children:  They are who they are, they are themselves. We can't do it! Maybe it has something to do with claiming them, I don't know.

How else is Daughter different?

She gets over anger much faster than I. (which I admire)

She is the Princess of procrastination. (which I detest)

Sometimes she can look at something with a different eye and make a perfect suggestion that I haven't been able to see.

She has a tender heart in a different way than I do.

She has more 'go' in her than I have ever had. By that I mean "Did somebody say go? I'm ready."

But whether like me or very different from me, thank God, she's still my young'un.

I wrote a poem many years ago, and the last lines go like this:

She may not have my blood in her veins, 
Or my genes to influence her start,
But she has something far more important that reigns,
She has every inch of my heart.

Indeed.

Mother's Day

I'll never forget the moment I became a mother. I had found out in October and in May we purchased all the baby furniture and got to work creating a  nursery for our Daughter. She was born in June.

I remember the first time I held her, how she 'just fit', how we marveled  how much she looked like my niece who had been born fourteen weeks prior. How her head and hair color and eyes were just like Husband's. How, at almost a month, when she smiled for the first time, she had only the one dimple in her left cheek, just like me.  How all that dark hair fell out and came back blonde, like mine.

She was a big baby, weighing over nine pounds, one ounce more than Husband had weighed at birth. An early talker, a late walker.

Telling jokes by the time she was two, her sense of humor delighted us.

As she has grown older, her cheekbones are high, like mine, she is very pale, like me. She is tall, like me, and skinny, like me (was). People don't know if they are speaking to me or to her over the phone, and sometimes Husband can't tell either, if he's in the other room.

She sings like I do, writes like I do, and draws like Husband. She hates math (who doesn't, in our house?)

She's mine, all mine.

Okay, she's really the good Lord's, who gave her to me for a season, to raise her in a godly home, to teach her His ways and to love  her as He loves her.

And I hope I have done that.

And Daughter, I also hope that she - your birth mother - would be proud and pleased with me, for I know she couldn't  help but feel that way about you.

Daughter, I love you more than life.

I thank God every day for you, the gift you are.