Happy 17th Birthday Sweet Girl

Today Syd turns Seventeen – that means that I have been a Mom for six thousand, two hundred and five days, Man. As I look back on those years, some of it has simply flown by; some of the bad I didn’t think would ever end, parts of it I can recall in vivid detail and wish that I could relive over and over again.

Like a lot of young parents, we bought a video camera just before Syd was born and taped Syd for hours. Then one day, when she was about eighteen months old, I sat down to watch some of it and my heart literally broke in two. That baby on the tape was already gone, she was now a toddler, and I quit taping pretty much from that point on…and I’ve barely watched any of the tapes since. I cried all day on her first birthday because it meant that we had already lost a year of time with her - so as you can imagine, number seventeen is especially bittersweet.

We waited ten years to have Miss Syd and for so long she was a very quiet, shy little girl. Now, she’s a very independent young lady – she's outgrowing us fast, sometimes she’s too busy or thinks she’s too old to stop and listen to her Mom and the thing I wish she would stop and hear this scatterbrained woman say is:

I love you more than life itself…I would die in a heartbeat for you…I ache with love for you…I still want to brush the hair from your eyes…It’s okay to cry sometimes and I’d even hold you in my lap if you would let me…Life isn’t always fair, but damn it, I’d make it that way if I could…I want to laugh OUT LOUD with you…cause girl you are FUNNY…Don’t grow up too fast cause life can be tough out there…The light will always be on for you.

Love, Mom