make a wish!

My first child was a girl. She was perfect except everyone under the sun would assume she was a boy.  I became obsessed with wanting her hair to grow.  The things you think about when you are twenty and kind of dumb…

Our second girl was born almost exactly two years after the first.  This is how she looked fresh from the womb:

Umm…it’s okay if you laugh (just a little).  She had so much hair we couldn’t believe it. She had flocks of it even all over her back and shoulders.  She was like the monchichi (remember those?) I always wanted.

I loved washing her hair, by 7 months all that hair was gone.  It would be matted on her crib sheet like a cat slept there.  Did you know baby hair falls out like that?  She is a gem, my Maggie.  

She is so full of compassion and energy and makes the sun shine on the cloudiest of days.

If you haven’t guessed today is her birthday, her sweet 16.  I should be saying how 16 years has gone by so fast but truthfully it feels like she has been a teenager forever.  One day she was a scrawny kid who rollerbladed in the house and sat on her own arm and broke it (while we lived in the Netherlands mind you and my husband was away and I had no idea where the emergency room was).  Then overnight she was a young lady that would spend her allowance on make up and carry a big purse that weighs 43 pounds.

She has been taller than me for a few years and snaps her gum and says “y’all” like Flo from Alice.  She is her father’s daughter in that her ambition knows no bounds.  And also that she has huge parts of intelligence and craziness mixed together.  One moment she will be looking at vintage jewelry then the next she will be playing football in the yard.

Happy sweet sixteen, Mags!