I wrote about Emilee the other day and had been trying to figure out what I would write about Amanda… They are so different in so many ways… Then, Auburn Pisces.
With Amanda being my first, I often go back to the beginning in my mind. She was born on November 19, 1996 at 8:20 in the morning. She changed me. The second that little girl was born, everything child-like from me was gone, everything selfish of me vanished, every want I had was lessened, and every love I had was muted. She deafened me. She made everything else seem small and ridiculous. Amazing how a tiny baby is capable of making everything different.
The first time I held her you could probably hear the change, you could hear my heart change shape and form (much like the Grinch, lol). I stared at her in disbelief. I can honestly tell you that before Amanda was born, my experience with babies was nil. In fact the closest thing to a baby I had seen in so many years was a toddler. I thought I was getting a puppy, in human form, for god sakes. Someone I would have to feed and play with. No one, no one, can explain to you the way you feel. No one can even begin to take the intricacies of being a parent and break them down for you. You do not know until it happens and then you are forever changed, forever unable to return to that place you were before and never would you want to.
I grew up with Amanda. She taught me how to be a mother, how to be her mother. I learned through my experiences with her what kind of mom I wanted to be and how to do it. I was morphing as she grew and probably still am with every day.
This year, Amanda will be nine years old. Nine. That probably sounds like nothing, you are probably thinking ‘so what?’… But that's because you don't understand. You see, nine is half way to eighteen. Eighteen is legally an adult and college and the freedom to move wherever in the world her heart desires. Eighteen is freedom, period. It is a time for mistakes and lessons and heartbreak and failure. We’ve all been eighteen (some of us sooner than others) and I am scared for her. I want to protect her and in a matter of years, I’ll have to step back.
You are probably thinking that I still have nine more years and that I shouldn’t be freaking out just yet. But, you don’t realize that Amanda was just born last month and just started school last week and just yesterday she was seven. Where did it go? When did she turn eight?? How did we get here so quickly?? And if the first eight years were over in a blink of an eye, am I going to blink again and she’ll be gone? Married or traveling or living and loving in a city so far away that she doesn't even think of me except on Sundays when she calls home to say hello.
But I am talking about me, not her.
