On the day she turned one we celebrated in the city park.  I remember watching her toddle around and wondering at where the year had gone.

Today she turned seventeen.

Seven. teen.

One year from adulthood.  One quick-as-a-blink year left before she arrives.  Officially free to go her own way, wherever that might be.

It’s a daunting thought.  Daunting because it’s so easy to look back and lament missed opportunities.  I should have done more.  Been more.  Taught more.  Listened more.  Loved more.

Because here I am with all that evaporated time, wishing for a moment or two of it back.  I’d pay good money.

I can’t help but wonder at how this mothering thing works once she’s out from under…me.

I know some of the wispy dreams that float around in that head of hers.  It’s good stuff, let me just say.  I think I know who she wants to become.  I believe that she can and she will, if she perseveres.

She told me just yesterday, during an impromptu heart to heart, that she’s become her own person.  That she thinks for herself.  That she has her own compass.  Her own right and wrong.  And that no one person will sway her.

I believe it.

You know how when your daughter comes to be outside of you and suddenly–like truly suddenly as in something huge where nothing at all was before–you love her something fierce?  You think back to the days before her and wonder at your purpose back then.  And you hold her tender little fingers and pray for her tender little soul that nobody nothing notanythingever will hurt her?  But day by day she grows and, yes, she hurts.  But inch by inch you have to let go and just trust.  So here I am–one year away from officially being done {you and I both know moms are never done} and the trust doesn’t come easy.

Not easy at all.

She is a girl uncommon, this I know.  A womanchild all her own.  A young lady so everything I hoped for.  So very everything beyond what I imagined possible.  A curious miracle because how could she be so…much?  Even in spite of me.

Her outward beauty astounds me.  Her soul inspires me.  Her seventeenth birthday makes my heart hurt.

A good hurt.  Kinda.

Jayce’s class went to the library for the first time this week.  He picked out a book: Pinkalicious.

It’s the story of a little girl who eats too many cupcakes and turns pink.  The cover of the book is, well, pinkalicious.

Three days after he brought the book home, Jayce mentioned in passing that a big bully boy at his table made fun of him for picking Pinkalicious.  Because, you know, it was very pink.

Clearly that boy’s mother has failed to teach him that real men like pink.  Either that or he’s been prematurely meaned up.

My biggest fear with kindergarten is that my sweet little snuggly bear will go off and learn precisely the lessons that the big bully is trying to teach: that you have to be someone you’re not to be one of the “cool” kids; that if you step even a little out of the box you’re a freak; that different is somehow lesser than.

My boy is anything but.  Let me assure you.

He is the most sensitive of souls.  He’s patient and curious.  Genuine and forgiving.  He sings “Yes Lord, Yes Lord, Yes Yes Lord” like nobody’s business.  He listens when we tell him things, and you can see his wheels always turning, trying to do better next time.  He sits next to me in the glider rocker in his room–spreading his blanket over both of our laps–and listens intently to E.B. White’s THE TRUMPET OF THE SWAN.  And when we’re done, he says, “you can rock me if you wanna.”  He eats his vegetables and tells me I look beautiful.  He brings in flowers for my hair.  He runs and jumps and can’t hardly sit still.  While I brush his teeth he signs, “I love you more than you love me.”  He goes crazy when his daddy gets home from work, running towards the door and screaming with delight.  He licks his ice cream bowl clean.

I really like that boy.  Really, really like him.

When Kennedy read him Pinkalicious, she told him that the same author wrote another book: Purplelicious.  I know precisely which book is coming home in the backpack this week.

And I love him all the more for it.

You might remember the post from back before Christmas in which I told you how Jayce had been “wishing for a dog or a cat every day.“  And how we caved to his heart’s desire and picked out a  little Mowgli of our own to love.

Fast forward eight months.  Mowgli is no longer a distant wish, but a very real, very present part of our family.  One would think our little wisher would frequently be found frolicking in the yard with his dog, throwing sticks and partaking in other boy/dog activities.

Not. So.

My boy?  He has a mean streak, apparently.  Because when I look out into the backyard, this is what I see.

Do you see what I see?  All those doggy toys, precariously placed throughout the yard.  Placed high enough that Mowgli can see them, but can’t…quite…reach.

You can tell that this boy of mine has been tormented by his three older sisters.

Either that or he’s a little serial killer in the making–finding great joy is the anguish of defenseless little creatures.

I’m hoping it’s the former.

I was driving. Jayce was buckled into his booster behind me. “Mommy,” he said. “Why doesn’t Cassie know how to tie? I tie stuff all the time.”

He does.  Lengths of “rope” (scarves) are among his most valuable treasures.  Should you ever find yourself in my house you’d better beware; you could happen upon a booby trap at any turn.

“She just hasn’t learned yet,” I answer.

“Well then how come I’ve learned already and she’s bigger than me?”

“We all learn at a different pace, buddy.  She’ll learn when she needs to know how to tie.”

This is the best answer I can give him.  The truth.

When Cassidy was born I grieved for a long, long time.  I grieved the perfect package I’d been expecting.  Torri and Kennedy were around to see the process.  They were around to hear two words delivered in explanation practically all the day long.  Down syndrome.  Those two words cast so heavy a shadow over our door.

In the years since there have been far fewer explanations.  By the time Jayce was born there was very little need to explain anymore.  In fact, I don’t know for sure if Jayce has ever even heard the words Down syndrome in relation to his sister.

Here’s the thing:  Even Cassidy doesn’t know she has Down syndrome.  If I asked her what it meant she’d shrug her shoulders and ask what we’re having for dinner.

I’ve never explained Down syndrome to her because–to date–there’s been no need.  She is who she is, just ask Jayce.  He’d tell you that she is Cassidy and she is eleven and she is his best friend.  Down syndrome does not define her.  The condition affects her, but I fear the words would limit her.

If ever there comes a day when Cassidy comes to me and asks what makes her different than everybody else, here is what I will tell her:

You are different because your smile can light up a room.  You are different because whereas other kids pass by that student in a wheelchair, you stop and give her knuckle knocks every single morning.  You are different because you wake up the second the sun rises.  And because you let the dog lick your mouth.  Ew.  You’re different because you change your favorite color each week but your favorite “food” has always been (and likely always will be) ice cream.  You’re different because you say what you mean and you mean what you say.  You’re different because it’s impossible to embarrass you.  You’re different because you habitually close doors and shut cabinets and lower toilet lids. You’re different because you love birthdays more than any other day of the year.  You are different because you forgive so very wholly.  You’re different because you have three twenty-first chromosomes to my two.  You’re different because God only made one you.  You’re fearfully and wonderfully made.  Don’t you forget it.

It would be the best answer I could give her.  The truth.

When first they go off to dad camp I–admittedly–exhale.  The pace slows to a half-hearted stroll.  There is an eh-whatever mentality where once a gotta-get-it-done one ruled supreme.

There is the novelty of cooking for only three.

There are fewer piles of laundry.

There are lazy mornings. Empty schedules.  Lots and lots of minutes to pass doing nothing.

There is quiet.

But before long the quiet gets unnerving.  Through it I can hear the steady drip…drip…drip of a leaky faucet.  The imposing tick…tock, tick…tock of the clock on the wall in the next room.  And then I start to wonder what they’re up to.  How they’re faring.

And just when I thought I might be able to get accustomed to the happy-go-lucky free and easy lifestyle I realize that no.  I can’t.  I don’t want to.

But there are reminders everywhere.  In the still-made beds in their empty bedrooms.  In the shiny faucets and toothpaste glob-free sinks of their bathrooms.  In the hush of a phone not ringing to life announcing the calls of their friends.  In the perpetually cleanness of everything.  Everywhere.

In our house we have what my husband lovingly dubbed CRAP.  The Cup Retention Action Plan.  The idea was born out of necessity, really, after months of clutter on the counter tops.  The kids would grab a cup for a drink of water and leave it on the counter.  They’d come back an hour later and grab another cup for a drink and leave it, too.  Jeff grew tired of the sea of plastic cups of which nobody would claim ownership.  He established CRAP, assigning each child a designated cup color (Torri=pink, Kennedy=orange Cassidy=lime green Jayce=primary green or yellow).  Unclaimed cups became a thing of the past.

One of the saddest things about dad camp is the monochromatic dishwasher.  It makes me miss CRAP.

Torri came home early from dad camp, so that she could go off to summer camp with the youth group.  She was home for just over 24 hours, as is evidenced in this picture of my pitifully CRAPless dishwasher.

Dad camp is nice.  But not nearly as much so as the hustle and bustle, the go go go, the noisy, bickering, more-than-I-knew-to-hope-for fullness of my beautiful life.  CRAP and all.

I have different points of pride for each and every one of the little people who’ve come into the world through my body.

Today, though?  The redhead.

She leaves my heart so puffed with love and pride that sometimes I worry it’ll either burst or just up and float right away.

This child.  Oh my goodness this child.

She is a lover.  A giver.  The most generous of souls.

She shares a bedroom with her ten-year-old sister.  The same sister who is well-known for the burping and the farting.  And while one might think that sharing a bedroom is giving enough– for Kennedy?  It’s not.

She walks her sister through the most menial of tasks.  She helps her do homework that even I have to take a time-out from for fear that my frustrations will overtake me.

She translates for her.  Always has.  Given the direct line to Cassidy’s brain she seems to be privy to, you’d think they were twins.

She reads her bedtime stories.  Both of them cuddled up on the top bunk.  Cassidy hangs on her every word.

She helps her to shower.  She helps her to stay safe.  She helps her to know right from wrong.

She helps her to grow.  To live.  To be.

She coaches and guides and fiercely protects with more love and infinitely more patience than I could ever ask of her.

At school, Kennedy sacrifices lunch time to picnic with Cassidy.  Whereas the other 7th grade girls are huddled in a corner somewhere, wrapped up in the tween drama of the here and the now, not my Kennedy.  You’ll find her eating a PB&J with the little girl who nobody else seems to understand.  And then?  After lunch?  They play in the sandbox.

If you don’t have a child with special needs, you might not fully grasp the urgent, anxious desire for there to be someone, somewhere who “gets” your baby.

For me, that someone is built in.

Built in, but not taken for granted.

For this wise-beyond-her-years, amazing gift of a girl, I am and always will be more grateful that words can convey.  As a sibling–or as a stand alone–I am blessed beyond measure for the gift of her in my life.

My oldest daughter is standing before me.

She’s washing dinner dishes while I take a stab at the ol’ blog.

My stomach hurts so bad that I think I’m slowly dying. She says.

And now she’s horizontal on the floor.

She’s had one of those days.

One of those icky-crampy-BoysAreSucky-and-IDon’tGetThisEconHomework kind of days.

Her bus was MIA.  So she stood waiting at the bus stop for upwards of an hour.

We had tomatoes for dinner.

She hates tomatoes.

It necessitated dishes.

She hates dishes.

Her blond locks are pulled up into a puff of a half pony.  A black headband holds back the tendrils that threaten to fall into her face.  Her skin is peach and flawless–her eyes, a glassy charcoal blue.

Her lips are pouty: an uncontainable question mark.  Why is it this hard?

She doesn’t ask the question.  But I can feel it seeping from those glassy eyes of hers.  I remember having been there myself.

There are moments at which I look at her and in response I find my heart beating twice where once would have been sufficient.

I remember when she first came along.  The two of us were stretched out on a dime-store comforter on a used mattress–all we could afford at the time.  She was cooing and intermittently stretching and then jerking her knees into the fetal position from which she’d so recently come.

Oh how I marveled at her.  At the teeny miracle of a being I’d managed to birth.

Tears filled my eyes then and I swore aloud that I’d kill anyone who ever hurt her.

Sixteen years later I’ve managed to reign in those instincts.

But still.

My heart breaks for her.  And rejoices, all at once.

Breaks with phantom pains of having once been sixteen myself.  Breaks with the remembrance of how do-or-die everything seemed at the time.  Breaks at the realization that no matter how badly I ache to, I can’t kiss away her pain.

But so too am I warmed.

She’s got strong footing.  More so than she knows.

She’s not to be broken.  She bends, instead.

Almost like the gerbera daisy on our porch that went one too many days without water, she wilts.  But only momentarily.  I came along with my watering can in the heat of this mid-October afternoon, and then came a crisp evening and already, that daisy has lifted her face, awaiting the morning sun.

My girl.

Stronger than she knows.

She’ll grow into it.  Soon enough.

Are you a reader who appreciates me “being real”?

I only ask because I’m about to be really real.  And if you’re not a reader who appreciates that side of me you best avert your eyes.  Fair warning.

My topic of choice?  Cassidy.  My third child.  The wild one.  Also known as the burping, farting girl.

She came home sick from school yesterday.  I wasn’t the least bit surprised by this, considering the number of railings she licked while we were visiting Disneyland last weekend.

Licked?  You ask.  Yes, lick.  She licks things.  It’s the phase she grew into once she grew out of the spitting.  Licking.  One step forward, two steps back.

She licks things when she’s frustrated–when I get on to her for one of her other behaviors.  She gets back at me by licking.  Things.  Handrails.  Her hands.  The bottom of her shoe (that’s a classic one).

This weekend, though?  This weekend she licked handrails.

I’m not a bad mom.  Really, I’m not.  It’s not that I failed to forbid her from the licking of the handrails.  I most certainly did–forbade her that is.  Only, she’s not so much into listening.  It’s not her gig.

Licking?  Totally her gig.

And when she’s not licking, she’s smearing her hands along anything and everything within her vicinity.  Trash cans, elevator buttons, random surfaces, eh, whatever.  It’s all the same to her.  After the smearing of the hands she proceeds to rub her eyes, her nose, her mouth–any orifice through which germs can enter her body.  She’s not choose-ey.  It’s almost as though she seeks out the portal through which germs can enter most efficiently and bends over backwards so as to allow–encourage, even–the germs to penetrate her immune system.

So she came home vomiting.

None of the rest of us came home vomiting.  Despite being in contact with the very same germs.  Sans the licking–granted.

Yesterday, she started vomiting and my hands were elbow-deep in dish water and allsoapywet so I told her to run to the toilet.

But she didn’t run.

She walked.  Very, very slowly.

She made it all the way through the living room (which has concrete, easily-cleaned floors, I might add), down the hall (also with the concrete floors), past one perfectly good bathroom with one perfectly good toilet (and concrete floors).  She made it all the way to her bedroom doorway.  A bedroom that has had perfectly good carpeting, mind you.  It was there that she let loose the wrath of the whole wheat white shells and cheese lunch I’d previously nourished her with.

I spent an hour picking pasta remnants from the carpet fibers before lugging out the Hoover steam cleaner and shampooing the carpet so as to spare us all the more-than-slightly-rank smell.

Why she chose to surpass that first perfectly good bathroom?  Your guess is as good as mine.  Her reasoning for doing so is probably the same as her reasoning for licking hand rails at the Happiest Place on Earth.  Germfest be damned.

The sun came out this morning, though.

There was no vomit.  And no hand rails for the licking.

The moral of my long-winded story?  In this season of back-to-school, just thank your lucky stars for Purell, my friends.  And use it liberally.

As far as weeks go…the last one wasn’t particularly high-ranking in my book.  Jeff was out of town again (Orlando, this time), which is never fun.  And while he was gone I had a run-in with a 60-something Hellians Angel who–I kid you not–very purposefully threw his ABC gum at my car.  ABC, as in, Already Been Chewed.

Yes.  Seriously.

Don’t ask.

The week?  Not so good.

The weekend, though?  Pretty cool.

You might remember my early spring post about the family member (once removed) who we broke bread with.  Well…they’re baaaaaacccckkkk.  And bread was broken once again.  There may even have been a cocktail or two involved.  Here are the pictures; you be the judge.

There were smiles.  Lots of laughter.

There were board games played–after having gathered around the table in our PJ’s.

There was questionable attire (skull and crossbones necklace.  Ahem.  But I’m not naming names).

There was Mudd Pie.  And the happy birthday song (have I ever mentioned that Torri and her dad share a birthday?).

But mostly there was good, old-fashioned, genuine fun.  Had by all.

“When you can do the common things of life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world.”  -George Washington Carver

Well, Mr. Carver, I think we’d qualify.

And proud of it, by the way. :)

I remember the learning, the day I first knew that she was to be.  I was a sixteen-year-old girl working an after school job at our small town’s ice cream parlor.  I ran next door to the drugstore during my break and bought an EPT (or its inexpensive equivalent).  I took it into the bathroom and read the instructions three times in a row and then I took the test, holding my breath all the while.  There was nothing to do but wait–all trembly and scared–for a tiny pink line that would change life as I knew it.

I remember the telling.  First her dad, who was every bit as scared as I.  I told my brother before I could bring myself to tell my parents.  But tell them, I eventually did.  I sat at the dining room table and fumbled with Valentine’s Day conversation hearts, rolling them between my fingers as if that, somehow, would make the news any easier to deliver.

I remember knowing, right from that very first instant.  I knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was mine and never once did I look back.

I remember growing.  Both of us–her from a teensy cell of a being into a kidney bean embryo and then a misshapen something and then a full-fledged baby.  And me–the skin stretching tighter and tighter as the bulge of my belly became unrecognizable.

I remember seeing.  There she was on a TV screen, the image black, white and bubbly.  Her heart beat within me.  Those fluttery, slow-motion movements and the absence of anything fleshy between her legs.

I remember changing.  It wasn’t overnight, but the changes were swift nonetheless.  Cheerleading and designer jeans and homecoming grew fainter and more distant while the realization of what was to be took hold and rooted itself into the heart of me.  Slowly but surely, the instincts God had breathed into my soul tingled to life.

I remember giving.  Birth.  Life.  Love.  Hour upon hour of a drug-free labor gave way to the primal push–the burn of her making her way to the world.  She was squirmy and slippery and unbelievable.  Unbelievably, beautifully mine.

She’s as old now as I was when she first came to me.  Sweet sixteen.  Already.

She’s got just as many candles on her cake, but a world of difference separates the girl I was from the young woman she’s becoming: a world of dreams I never knew to dream, a world of opportunity just outside her door, a world of chances she’s just brave enough to take.

Chuck Palahniuk wrote, “The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.”

After so many months of wondering if it could all possibly really be happening, she made her way to me one Labor Day evening in 1994.  I was the first person with whom she locked eyes and in that very instant I was struck with a gravity I’d not known before.  In the passing of a few seconds I became a whole new person–a mother.  And though none of us last forever, it was in that moment that I knew…a part of me would.  There was a legacy born and more than I’d ever wanted anything before, I wanted to be worthy of this tiny pink blessing in my arms.

She came when I was too young.  But, together, we made our way.  And though there are a million things I wish I could have been for her–a billion shortcomings I’d like to make up–she flourished in spite of me.

Sweet sixteen.  May it only get sweeter from here.

Happy Birthday baby girl.  I am so honored to be your mom.