Sunny-side Up

Hard to believe my C-baby is twenty-one-years-old today.

Twenty-One!

Today!

At 3:45pm.

Twenty one years ago she entered this world, sunny side up (that's "posterior," for those of you in the medical field), because she just couldn't wait to see her mama's face.

Or vice versa.

14 hours of back labor.

Four...

Teen...

Hours.

She did manage to sleep for the first 48 hours of her life after that.  In the hospital.  Awaking just in time for my mother to drive us three hours away to Buffalo (MN).

Multiple stops for a screaming baby and poopy diaper later, we arrived, exhausted, at my folks' house in Buffalo.  Bless my mother's heart for getting us there in once piece after all of that drama.

From that day on, she slept precisely 12 minutes total until she reached the age of eight months, when she decided that maybe just maybe she could learn how to sleep for realz.

She's been making up for those eight months ever since I think.

Infancy aside, she really was an easy-keeper.  If she were a squash, she'd be a spaghetti squash - still as good when you pull it out of the cellar in January as it was the day you put it in there in October.

I know you're not a squash sweetie, it's just a metaphor. 

Her first word was "hi."  I should have known this was a fore-shadowing, miss socialite extraordinaire.

Her first tooth was cut at age 8 months.  Her second tooth, at twelve months.  Which meant 4 months of snaggle-tooth grins.

But those snaggly-toothed grins were so, utterly adorable.

She grinned and said "hi" to everyone.  EVERYONE.  Probably explains how she could accrue 750 FB friends in 6 years while I have maybe 70.  All related to me.

As a toddler, she loved taking care of the "babies," any child at the day care younger than her.  She still loves babies. As a teenager she was already the Baby Whisperer.  Where was she when I needed a Baby Whisperer? 

Oh yeah, she was still a (screaming) baby.

But then she learned how to sleep and life was good.

We've had a heckuva ride, her and I (and Papa Bear, too). I'm working on getting those memories written down, before they all escape into the far recesses of my grey matter.

So that one day when she's rocking her own newborn baby, she can open up her book and begin... 'Once upon a time, a little girl was born sunny-side up..."

Happy Birthday sweetie. 

All my love & smootchies.

bbo!