All Grown Up!

A milestone in Sarah's life took place this week:  My little girl turned 21 years old!

Something people always seem to say about such an event is usually something like, "It seems like just the other day...", or "I can remember when you were just..." followed by some sort of size or age-related remark.

Well, it's the same for me of course.

Sarah was sort of a miracle baby.  Her mom lost one of her ovaries not long before she was pregnant, and just after Sarah was born the remaining one shut down.  It was a small window of opportunity she fell into for sure.  You know--before I was in such a scenario myself, I remember wondering why anyone would really want to see their child being born.  It just seemed like such a messy and private thing.  Well, when the opportunity presented itself to me as a new father, I didn't question it--I was eager to be there.  We only got one ultrasound during the pregnancy and it really didn't provide us with any information about what sex the new baby was, so as she was born I was the one to make the announcement to her mother as she was born.

When she was tiny we put a bunch of little color Formica samples that we got from one of the hardware stores on a bead chain.  We got them together as sort of a jingly thing for her to play with when we were in the car.  We called them her colors.  When we were ready to go somewhere we'd say, "Sarah, where are your colors?"  She'd start looking around until she found them.  She never went anywhere without her colors.  She knew fuchsia, teal, and all sorts of other colors before she could even walk.  I remember fuchsia was "booshba" to her.  If you tried to fool her with any colors she'd catch it right off the bat.

My favorite times with Sarah were reading stories to her.  Her mom and I were avid garage sale shoppers, and we amassed a huge collection of children's books.  I think I remember counting and we had over 600 of them.  When Sarah was an infant, her mother and I made a pact that we would never deny her if she wanted us to read to her.  Little did we know how much we would have to follow through on that decision.  From even before she could walk she would pull as many books as she possibly could off her bookshelf and head toward the nearest of us that was sitting.  I remember reading  a half a dozen books to her, and the whole time she would be intently focused on every single word and picture on every page.  When the last of the stack of books would be finished, I would breathe a sigh of relief.  Trouble is, she would climb down, toddle over to the shelf, and grab another armload.  We read a lot of stories over the years.  Her love for the books never waned.  I was always on the lookout for books that were a little different--books that offered a little more imagination.  Those were my favorites.  I also chose the ones with the best artwork.

I loved to go on drives with her.  I put some custom seat belts in the center of my pickup truck that were long enough to embrace her booster seat, and she was my copilot.  She chattered away, taking in everything that she saw.

I helped her with school projects a few times over the years, and like many parents probably went a little overboard--like one particular time when she was in maybe second grade.  Her school was named after the astronaut Dick Scobee, and they would occasionally have space-related events.  This time all the kids in her class were to dress up in some kind of special outfit or hat and they would parade in and out of every classroom in the school.  For Sarah, I made a helmet.  It was a motorcycle helmet that was covered in aluminum foil, and was equipped with a custom-made rotating dish antenna on top.  I made the antenna out of the top half of a Dri-Z-Air cage and some kind of battery powered rotating lollipop that was in the stores at the time.  All she had to do was reach up and push a button to start it rotating.  She was a hit!  Another time I made her a tuned xylophone out of electrical conduit for her music class.  I think she still has that one.

She was immersed in all sorts of things as she grew up.  Her mom insisted on exposing her to dance classes.  She did that for a few years.  I hated dance recitals.  I couldn't stand waiting for her to appear on stage and having to endure all those other fledglings, but when she was up there I'd get all teary-eyed and proud.  We also had her in soccer for several years.  I was one of the few parents that actually stood out and watched during practices.  I don't remember how many years she was kicking soccer balls, but it seems like it was like 8 or 9.  I've always liked to see her learning and progressing in the things she did.  Volleyball, art, math... There were so many things she was good at.

As she got older, things started happening faster.  I remember one time when it occurred to me that I was officially unable to help her with her math homework any longer.  She was way over my head in middle school.  It seems like the older she got the less I remember things.  I guess it was just the fact that the older a child gets the less direct parental involvement and supervision is taking place.

Ask almost any father and he will say the same thing:  "She may be an adult now, but she will always be my little girl."