Lucky 13

 Holy Hannah, would you lookit this: we got ourselves a teeanager! She just gets older each passing year. I know: super deep.

The irony at being consistently surprised by an annual event never ceases to amaze: I do it for each of the offspring's birthdays, every summer break, every Christmas. I'm reasonably intelligent, good at patterns. But I just never see it coming, the milestones that take her from my baby girl to my young woman. They accumulate, and wham! Who's THAT girl?

 Always eager to accommodate, my Eve. Take this Rockies game, for instance. Just so I'll continue to acknowledge her (i.e., laugh and talk with her, drive her around, buy her Aeropostale), she wears the grey Rockies T. For daddy, who bankrolls our lives and takes baseball uber seriously, the vintage A's cap. A builder of bridges, a peacemaker. Always has been.

 Also a swimmer. Which means more than the fact that she's water safe. Like most sports, a whole shorthand of behaviors and characteristics is implied but never explicitly stated: Determined. Dedicated. Consistent. Encouraging. Supportive. Level-headed. Reliable. Driven. A time manager. A planner. Prone to sacrifice. And when you hold the beautiful infant in your arms for the first time, you may never consider how important you find those characteristics in others and how many of them you want that child to possess. We just count ourselves blessed that she came to earth this way, and that we found, relatively early on, what she loves and what will help shape her into the gal she needs to be. 

 Eve's never been a huge reader - I would spend literally hours reading to her throughout the day when she was small - but reading for her own enjoyment and enlightenment never held much priority until I brought home Suzanne Collins' masterwork in the Hunger Games series. Eve was in from the first sentence, just devoured them. And now she branches out into like-minded books, reading hours a day, ON HER OWN. I never expected her to be just like me, and, truthfully, wouldn't wish that on her, but to share that love of reading, well, I can feel good about that wish coming true.

 And we celebrate all things Eve with a rowdy sleepover...Eve's always been an easy laugher. Most times, I think, less because you're actually funny than because she's so delighted to be sharing happiness with you.

 Like I said, they were rowdy. But so great. A roving pack of screaming gigglers.

And so, my cross-eyed little beauty...many happy returns. We bless the day you came along and rearranged everything so splendidly, endlessly grateful for every day since.