Friday, February 6, 2009
Page 15
AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)
13 In the Blink of an Eye
By J’AMY PACHECO
How it amazes me you’re changin’ with every blink.
Faster than a flower blooms, they grow up all too soon.
—Billy Dean
It seems like it was just a minute ago that I brought my baby girl home from the hospital. She arrived prematurely, and I still remember the way her tiny body was nearly lost within the newborn-sized Peter Rabbit sleeper in which we dressed her for the very first time.
For a while, she slept with an apnea monitor band around her to sound alarm in the event she stopped breathing. Eventually, she started sleeping instead on Mommy’s chest. From that time on, she’s been Mommy’s girl; the frequent sidekick who sometimes seems like a clone of me, and other times seems different enough to make me wonder if I got the right baby.
This week, that tiny preemie turns 13. A child will go to sleep in her girly-girl room; a teenager will wake up. It doesn’t seem possible.
It’s a daunting thought that in just three years, she’ll need a car and driving lessons. In five, she’ll be asking us to pony up the hefty the tuition for the University of Southern California – no substitutions will do.
This past year has been one of change. She had braces put on in October, and she’s grown about a million inches. Combine the suddenly too-short pants and metal-mouth with her glasses, and you’ll probably agree that I’ve got a dorky looking little girl.
But she’s also slender, pretty, and hilariously funny – once she gets over being shy around a new person. She can text on her cell phone like a master, and types at least as fast as an above-average secretary. She writes prolifically, often coming up with thoughts that startle me with their profundity.
I’ve had 13 years with this girl, but there are times she seems like a stranger to me. She wakes up reluctantly and moody; then chatters non-stop at bedtime — which she always tries to put off. She loves to stay up all night, and will do so anytime it’s allowed.
She’ll ask a question or express a thought that reveals a philosophical depth uncharacteristic of a ‘tween. But then she’ll suddenly say something like, “I’m thinking of trying to eat a cotton ball. You know, like Will Ferrell in Elf.”
She recently wrote a 101-page story for a writing competition. Her subject required her to do a lot of research on ghosts. The story is pretty cool – but now its author requires the hall light be left on every night.
She’s a straight-A student with a vocabulary that’s…well…substantial enough that she would have been able to come up with an adjective to put here. But she was once taken by surprise in a restaurant when she blurted out what she believed to be a colorful noun, and it turned out to be an expletive – oops.
She’s a big fan of “Law and Order” who has met many judges and lawyers, and is probably one of few ‘tweens who could pass a vocabulary test made up of legal terms. Not too many things are more amusing than watching a child you can still carry discuss filing motions and sentencing recommendations.
She has a good head on her shoulders, and will usually think something through before jumping in. But then, she’ll do something spontaneously crazy – like riding the Space Mountain roller coaster at Disneyland 12 times in a six-hour period.
For the first time in her 13 years, she’s decided she’s too old for a birthday party. The days of decorating my house like ToonTown, an Indiana Jones temple or a pirate ship are gone; no more will her friends and all their siblings swing from decorations dangling from my staircase.
This year, she wants to have a “girls’ weekend out” with her best friend, getting their nails done, shopping, taking in a movie and concluding with, no doubt, a sleepless overnighter.
It’s been a hectic, crazy 13 years, but it doesn’t seem possible that so much time has passed. She’s not the only one who has changed.
If I weren’t her mother, I wouldn’t know the words to Taylor Swift’s “Love Story.” I wouldn’t have gotten around to reading “The Outsiders” or the “Twilight” saga. I wouldn’t be embarrassingly familiar with Hannah Montana, Zack and Cody, Junie B. Jones or the Magic Tree House. I wouldn’t know how much a mother can love a child.
Thirteen years sounds like a long time, but in reality, it’s seems like an eye blink – so fast that I might have missed it.
I’m just glad I didn’t.
Copyright 2009, Metropolitan News Company