The Year Of The Dreamer: Ode To The Youngest

This picture of Honey and I was taken sometime in September 1985.

I was about nine months pregnant and 25 years old.

I was young, and my hair was long, and no gray in it yet...

*sigh*

We were expecting our third baby,

due date : October 31st

No way was I going to have a baby on Halloween!

Back when water was almost new, we didn't have ultrasounds

so you never knew who was coming until they got there.

With two handsome boy's, and knowing this was our last baby. I was so sure we were having a girl, that I refused to pick out boy names...nagged into picking just one, it was Fairfax.

Honey wanted to name a girl Tabitha, if she was born on Halloween.

Why not Samantha, Or Endora?!?! (just breath) He wondered about Chantilly...

The night I went into labor, I about got left at home...

Honey loaded the boys in the car with their overnight bags,

climbed in and started honking the horn.

Meanwhile, I, was stuck in the house trying to get my shoes on!

Every time I would bend over I'd have another contraction!

Finally, I slipped them on, smooching down the backs, slipped a sweater on that was to small to fit around my middle, and waddled out the door, to see Honey starting to back out of the driveway with the passenger door open?! Calling, from his open window for me to "hurry up!"

I started laughing and that didn't help matters much.

So true to form, we didn't wait until the due date to meet our youngest child...our earliest arrival...our tiniest baby...

Our baby, who came home from the hospital with strep throat and ear infection at 24 hours old, loaded down with antibiotic's, a few extra receiving blankets, with orders to "keep her warm"...

I named her after my oldest and dearest friend...

The boy's will swear to you she is the spoiled one.

This morning I was reminiscing, as parents tend to do when their children reach "milestone" birth dates...

She is turning 25!!

I remember when she had such lofty goals of becoming a "Highland cow (he-lee-an coo) farmer" OR a pencil maker, who would wear a yellow jumpsuit and a pink pill hat, tilted, just right...

*sigh*

She has an amazing sense of humor, a prankster from the get-go,

She is loving and compassionate, friendly, strong, smart, people are drawn to her, she is just a smidge sarcastic...and lots of other stuff.

She still hates doing dishes and comes to my house to make her cookies...she can sew better than I ever could, spin a yarn that will have you laughing for day's, and she can draw most anything...

She once told me, "Mom, I'm the barnacle on the ship of your life".

I'm sure glad of that!

I was the mom.

Now she is the mom.

One day, she will look at a picture of herself, then realize that her daughter, is the same age she was when...