Kate turns 17 today.
It’s hard to believe that my little tax deduction is 17 years old. It seems like only yesterday that she wanted Britney Spears’s first album and a Polly Pocket.
I have so many memories of Kate as a little kid doing all those funny things most parents write in their kids’ baby books. I didn’t keep a “baby book” of sorts, but I did journal a lot. And I have to admit I do have a few really boring video tapes of Kate doing exciting things . . . like staring at her fingers or finger-painting her highchair tray with something gross or sitting in her crib smiling (just smiling, and she was so cute doing it) . . . but I feel a little guilty that I didn’t record more of her “moments” for myself.
I’m sure there will be plenty of times in the future when Kate won’t be with me, either because she has a family of her own and she’s weighed down with responsibility, or because I’m past due in paying her therapy bill and she’s not speaking to me. It’s during those times when I’ll wish I had recorded more, journaled more, taken more pictures, and snipped more of her hair to keep in little plastic bags.
I think if there was ever a defining moment in my life, it was the moment I found out I was pregnant with Kate. I was told by doctors that I wouldn’t have children, so I was just sort of okay with the fact that I would never be a part of the “Baby Brigade” that camped outside my front door every morning as I went off to work. Those pathetic mommy-types were up at the crack of dawn, and they’d gather like hens in the courtyard, their brats in pink, blue, and yellow.
Frankly, I hated them. And every time they’d yell, “When are you going to join us?” I whispered under my breath, “When I feel like being a fat, loud, obnoxious freak like you.” And then I yelled back, “Ohhhh, don’t you just wish!!” They’d all cackle like a coven of witches and I’d sneer all the way to the car. Driving away I thought, “Wouldn’t it be fun if lightning struck them all and made them infertile? Then what would they do?”
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