Who Will She Be At 15?

Friday, February 4, 2011

Page 15

AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)

Who Will She Be At 15?

By J’AMY PACHECO

I’ve found time can heal most anything, and you just might find who you’re supposed to be. I didn’t know who I was supposed to be at 15.

-Taylor Swift lyric

When my only child arrived on Feb. 7, 1996, who she would turn out to be was the last thing on my mind.

Instead, my thoughts were of things like sending my husband out to buy blankets and bottles after our daughter arrived a month and a half early, three days before a scheduled baby shower. Although we’d prepared our home with the big stuff, like a crib and car seat, we had put off shopping for little things until after the baby shower. Who knew?

In the beginning, she was something of an old soul. She was always observing people, and my mother once expressed concern that she rarely heard the baby laugh. Looking back, I’d say she was just storing up material for future use.

She was barely two when I came out of the shower one day to find her straining, one hand on the top of her head; the other beneath her chin. When I asked her what she was doing, she expressed frustration that she couldn’t get her head off.

As funny as that was to me, I’ll never forget the first time I realized my daughter had a sense of humor. She approached me with a banana in each hand and said, “Where ‘nana?” She then looked at one of her hands, gasped in surprise and said, “There ‘nana!” You probably had to be there, but I knew it was a joke.

Since then, she’s made me laugh quite a bit. She’s a funny girl who lives and breathes Harry Potter, and can recite just about every line and lyric from “A Very Potter Musical,” its sequel, and virtually every episode of “Potter Puppet Pals.”

She’s also a voracious reader who has progressed from the “Junie B. Jones” and “Magic Tree House” series in kindergarten through “Twilight” and “Maximum Ride,” to just about every teenage paranormal romance novel on the market. Lemony Snicket’s hilarious “Series of Unfortunate Events” books have been replaced with titles like “Dead Beautiful” and “Unearthly.”

There was a time when the only things you’d see on our television were cartoon kids like Caillou, or Katie and her alien pal, Orbie. Today, you’ll find the brown-haired girl who used to tune into “Barney” and “Blue’s Clues” watching “Ghost Hunters,” “Law and Order, or “Saturday Night Live.”

Even that brown hair has changed. My little girl once sported a head of hair so long it got wet on the back of a department store potty. Since that fateful day, it’s been kept short, and currently includes some rather vibrant crimson streaks. I got teary-eyed when we recently handed bags of no longer needed hair pretties down to her elementary school-aged cousins.

The girl who once happily wore Tinker Bell shoes that lit up when she walked and wore pink nearly every day has changed her style. Now, she wears black nail polish and arm warmers with shirts that sport characters like Jack Skellington and the rock band “Paramore.” Sparkly red glitter shoes have been replaced by black boots in all shapes and styles.

But the same girl didn’t hesitate to put on a floral sundress and heels for her grandparents’ anniversary party, or to frolic barefoot on the golf course after it was over.

She’s a complicated girl who is, I think, trying to figure out who she’s going to be. From first grade until middle school, she vowed to become a Disney Imagineer. Now, she wants to be a British author. I don’t mean she wants to write about British things – she wants to be an author, and she wants to be British. She’s even taken to spelling the word “color” with a u in it.

None of this worries me. The way I see it, there’s no better time to be crazy than when you’re a minor and your parents are still paying for the hair dye.

The first time I heard the Taylor Swift song quoted above, I was at a live concert with my daughter, who was still a few years away from that age. Even then, the song made me cry because I knew those days were right around the corner.

Now, the baby girl who once wore an apnea monitor and slept on my chest every night is turning 15. The birthday gifts we’re giving her are, I think, representative of the crossroads she’s at: she’s getting a Harry Potter-type “magic” wand, and a train case full of make-up.

It’s been a fun, scary, exciting and adventurous 15 years. I can’t imagine what the next 15 will bring, but I’m sure she’ll figure it out and be okay.

I just hope the same is true of her parents…