Happy Birthday, Little Miss April Fools!

Seven years ago today, I was blindsided.

My-life-as-I-knew it was walking blithely along, humming a tune and thinking how nice it was that all her ducks were in a row and that everything was going according to plan.

Then - WHAM! - providence ran up behind her, and, snickering, gave her a hard push which sent her sprawling, limbs akimbo and carefully organized packages in disarray.

I remember asking in disbelief, "You mean I'm having this baby here? Tonight?" And then, two short (but unbelievably intense) hours later, with even more shock, "it's a GIRL?!"

Since that night, the joke's been on me in so many ways. Out the window went all my carefully-laid plans. Into the ether went any sense of my own mastery over my world. And gone forever was a little piece of my heart, so help me, now carried (and too often dragged through the mud of frustration and crushed by the boulders of fear) by my daughter.

She's as intense and emotional as she was when she first showed up. Yet she's also aloof, so snuggle-time is rare and hard-won. Language-loving and curious, she soaks up information as fast as you can pour it into her.

I often see her baby-self in her - when she cries in frustration or when she looks mournfully and wordlessly around, and I know she needs her Mom Teddy to make it better. I see her toddler-self in her - when she excitedly tells me about something new she has learned at school.

And I often see the young woman she will become - when she is snarky (and, good heavens, she can snark your most belligerent teen under the table). When she is wise beyond her years. When I catch a glimpse of her out of the corner of my eye and her lanky frame with dishevelled hair suddenly transforms into a leggy, glowing beauty.

I'd freeze her if I could. This is the first year I've said that - until now, I've been impatient for her to grow up, to be able to do more, to be able to understand more. But I can tell already that with continued maturity will come conflict; we are far too similar, too emotional, too dramatic. We are both so stubborn, so determined to be right.

But until that day (and probably still on that day, if I'm being honest), I'll admire her and love her and bask in her turbulent glow. Baby girl, I'm glad you brought this chaos into my life. Even if it meant five more weeks of chaos than I'd planned.