14 Years Ago Today

Fourteen years ago today, I was lying in the hospital after being there since the evening before. We knew we would be there for a while, so we stopped at Bob's Big Boy and had their 2.99 special. A burger, fries and hot fudge cake! YUM. Plus they had vinyl seats.

We were having our first baby. While David slept in the chair in the middle of that late Sunday night, I couldn't sleep. I watched TV, pre-cable in a very nice comfortable room. Nothing on TV. It was a very long night. The next day, at nearly 1:00 in the afternoon, we were blessed with a beautiful baby girl. No hair, big blue eyes and pretty. Already pretty. Not all babies are pretty when they are born, but she was.

Our hearts swelled as we held her for the first time. Nothing on earth is like holding your baby for the first time. Something surreal about going to the hospital as a couple and coming home with this new little life. Now entrusted to us. To raise as a good person and to be loved thru anything, for all eternity.

David had take a bunch of photos to our neighborhood photo store, while I slept. He brought back a lobster and steak dinner and a bottle of Champagne. Little did we know, the hospital also sent us a steak dinner for two as well. Luckily my parents were there to eat dinner with us!

The next morning, less than twelve hours later, we brought her home. We couldn't be more in love with this perfect baby girl. She was 7.7 pounds, being a former bartender, I never forgot the size! I was a week past my due date when she decided to make her entrance into the world.

We brought her to her new home and just stared at her in awe. Her tiny little fingers and toes. I remember looking at her fingers when I held her for the first time and thinking her fingers were miniature versions of mine.

I had trouble nursing. A nurse came by the house to check on me and showed me how to get her to latch on while nursing. I thought I had it, but after the nurse left, the frustration grew as I could not do it. I went to a breastfeeding class where all the mothers sat around in a circle and a nurse would help us teach our babies to latch on. We had to wake them to get them to eat on command. It all worked out well, she and I figured it out!

We didn't let her out of our site. We had a bassinet in our bedroom and her car seat nearby for her to nap in as well. Eventually she lost some of her almost nonexistent hair from the back of her head. It grew back. We took her to the office at two days old to show her off. Then we headed to Nordstrom and I got nasty comments from old women who thought a two day old baby should not be shopping! We figured she would turn out to be a shopper. Nope, that was reserved for her future sister.

She was a smart baby from very young. We read to her from the first day we brought her home. David would come home early and have her lying on his chest as he talked on the phone to people at the office. We were in love. Deep unconditional love.

I enjoyed dressing her in different outfits and taking photos of her. I thought she looked darling in a bonnet we bought when I was about six months along. Old fashioned but cute.

We would take her out to dinner with us and she was very good. We walked into one restaurant and she shook excitedly when she saw all the fans on the ceiling. She laughed like crazy when she say my parents dog. She would sit in her little car seat and smile up at me and my heart melted. Big blue eyes and a toothless smile. I felt such love and warmth in my heart.

As she grew, she proved to be very smart. She was funny. She loved dressing up. She loved singing. She was just a pleasure to have around. When she was seven months old, I found out I was pregnant again. She was going to have a little sister. We had planned on giving her a sister close in age, as were one of my brothers and me. We were very close and I wanted that for my first daughter. Also, I had heard once they hit two, we might change our mind!

We continued to read to her and then both girls when her sister came along. She went to sleep at 6 PM and woke up at 6 AM. She got to a point where we thought she needed more socialization, so we enrolled her in Montessori school at three. She loved school and it was our invitation to meet parents and some became friends. She didn't like the very first day of school though. She got under a table and had a tantrum. After that little episode she settled into a very nice schedule.

By the time she was four she was reading on her own. She was asked to go in and read to the kindergarten class, and she was still in preschool. Books were a huge part of her life then and still are today. By the time she was in first grade we moved to Laguna Beach. Only one town over, but we still took her back to Montessori for two more years. We just felt the foundation of Montessori was a good start and a lesson in a lifetime of learning. It worked. We finally enrolled her in the public school up the street and she was ahead of the third grade class. She made the transition very easy. We were nervous, but the director of the school told us that after third grade, they were pretty much ready to take the Montessori method into real life. She was right.

She has always been an A student. We were lucky there. We still read at night, but the girls would read to us. It was a nightly ritual that we didn't want to end. Those were wonderful moments.

When she was sixteen months old, we brought home her sister. We had purchased a real life sized doll for her as we were going to have our own. The first day we brought her sister home, she bopped her in the head. We had to let her know that it was okay to not want to share our attention, but hitting was not allowed. So, she thought of other ways. When her little sister was napping in the car seat, we would put her in the play pen. She was safe when we did that with her. But, she opted to throw stuffed animals into the play pen and not let her sister sleep. Or the narcolepsy swing. It worked wonders on her, but she would stop it when her sister was in it. We put it back in a corner and still, she climbed up on the couch to stop the swing. But she loved her sister and they were indeed close.

I continued dressing her in cute little outfits not only because she looked so darling, but also because at some point, I new she would not allow me to dress her anymore. And that is what happened. She chose her own outfits and I let her wear what she wanted, providing it was appropriate for the weather.

Today, she is a very smart, witty, sarcastic, beautiful, loving, caring and ever changing fourteen year old. She just started high school last week. She wear shorts and t-shirts year round. She is not a slave to fashion. She has confidence enough to not care what other people think of her, something I learned, sort of, around forty. She is her own person and is not influenced easily. She is a wonderful poet. She reads prolifically. She enjoys Anime. She has become quite good at cooking. She is a really nice girl. She loves to sing. She loves music. We are so very proud of her and we love her with all of our heart.



Today she turns 14. Happy Birthday my sweet Zoe!