Grab a chair and a couple of root beers...

I somehow never envisioned this day.

Well, I did, but far off in some misty, distant future, nebulous and untouchable in the land of Someday. Because in my mind's eye, last week, my daughter was two and lurching around the living room with a very large dog and three attendant cats, chocolate smeared around her mouth from the chocolate chip cookie she was hanging onto with fierce determination as she headed for her goal; the front door.

Three days ago, she was pushing her baby brother in a giant Tonka truck across the kitchen floor while he squealed with glee, making "Vroom! Vroom!" noises while the Triplicats scattered out of the way.

Two days ago, she was waving impatiently at me to leave as I hovered outside her first grade classroom, her brother in a backpack on my back, hoping she was going to be okay, and that she would make friends.

Yesterday, she was playing in her first soccer game, stunning us both as she displayed a determination and ferocity that has gotten her through every hurdle that has been placed in her way. I still remember having to hold onto the Husbandly One when a kid who seemed like a veritable giant loomed over her and looked like he was going to plonk a massive fist on top of her head and crush her as he stole the ball from her. She looked up at him, sniffed derisively, then plowed him over as she took the ball back, and passed it to one of the forwards, who immediately took it and made a goal. She then turned to face the boy and flounced past him to show how beneath her contempt he was and ignored him for the rest of the game.

It was very demoralizing for him.

Last night, I hugged my seventeen year old daughter for the last time, and this morning, I hugged my eighteen year old daughter for the first time.

The night the Impertinent Daughter was born was one of the most... ridiculous and yet wonderful nights of my life. My water broke three fourths of the way through an episode of the X-Files, an episode I still to this day have never seen through to the end, and then we were rushing to the hospital, feeling woefully unprepared. I mean, we decided on her name on the way to the hospital!! Seriously!!

I had a C-section, because she was a breech baby, and I remember when I heard that first cry thinking, "Oh, my God... what have I done? What have I done?? I can't be a mother!! I'm too immature!! I'm not stable enough! I'm gonna fuck her up, and she'll be lying on a couch by the time she's 25, spilling her guts to a therapist about her whacko mom and how she totally fucked her up and... and... I CAN'T DO THIS!!"

Meanwhile, they were cleaning her up, and the Husbandly One was looking at her and cutting the cord and all that, and then they laid her in my arms, wrapped up like a little burrito. I looked into her tired little scrunched up face, her centuries old eyes looking up into mine, and felt my breath catch. She wriggled a tiny hand free of the burrito wrap, then reached up to touch my face, stroking my chin, and suddenly, I was calm.

I could do this.

We could do this. We would grow and learn together, and we could totally do this.

And now, here we are, eighteen years later. She's got a driver's license. She'll be graduating from high school in a few weeks. And there's a part of me that's screaming, "No, no, I can't do this! I can't let go of my little girl, my baby, my firstborn, I can't let her go out into the wild, crazy world, because she's not ready! I'M not ready!!"

Today, she hugged me, and touched my face, and I thought, "Maybe... maybe I can do this."

Nah, not really, but you know... I'll give it a really good try.

Happy Birthday, Impertinent Daughter. You have given the roller coaster of my life some really wild twists and turns, some of them utterly terrifying, but I hung on and I've enjoyed the ride. And I can't wait to see where it'll take us next!!

I had a rather... interesting... experience with the Impertinent Daughter this evening. And it's all because of thanfiction.

Now, I need to set this up first. The Impertinent One is twelve, and will be thirteen in a few months.

*pauses for moment of horror and stunned realization otherwise known as an "Extreme Mom Moment"*

Okay, better now. Anyhow, as most of you know, she's as cute as a button, too. And... she gets noticed. There's a waiter at our local Chinese restaurant who becomes incredibly clumsy when we come in for meals. He drops things, falls over tables, chairs, patrons, molecules... has come to our table to ask if we need refills on tea, soft drinks when he's not our waiter for the night, loses his train of thought while talking to us... all because of Miss Priss.

And he's not the only young man to be afflicted like this. Thing is... she's oblivious to it.

This isn't to say she doesn't notice it when boys "act all weird or goofy" around her (those are her words), but she has no real idea why. And mostly, at this point, she thinks of boys as good friends, buddies, partners in crime, etc. Though... she's got a vague idea that there may be something more to it, but for now... she's cool with thinking they've got major coordination problems, and she just happens to be present when it happens.

She's rather puzzled by it, actually.

So, we're sitting here, and she's brought me more of yet another manga she's working on, I'm reading it, and she's driving me nuts telling me about it while I'm trying to read the friggin' thing, and she finally says, "Anything interesting on LJ?" Because from time to time, I will show her posts that I think she'll find interesting or funny. And for some odd reason, I thought of thanfiction's recent voice post. She's fascinated with voice posts and from time to time, I let her listen and guess where the person who made it is from.

I click on Than's post and go back to reading her new pages, and frown, because... it's quiet, except for Than's voice. I peek at her from the corner of my eye and she's sitting there, entranced, mouth slightly open.

"Er... Miss Priss?" I said, and she jumped like I'd just goosed her or something.

"Wow," she said, blinking at me. "You know what, Mom? I could listen to him talk all day long. I have no idea what he's saying but... I just love his voice. It's like listening to you when you get all testy and short, but...better, and... and..." she started going all dreamy-eyed.

Uh-oh, I thought, this is... different.

"What does he look like?"

"Er..."

"Are there any pictures of him?"

I blinked again, and obligingly went to his photos of his Halloween costume, where he went as Bill Weasley (and was awesomely wicked cool). She looked and nodded and said, "That is so cool. I like his scars. He didn't paint them on," and then, "Hey, wait, is this the guy that did that tutorial on drawing a portrait with crayons?"

"Ye-e-es," I said slowly.

"So he's into Harry Potter, he makes his own costumes and scars and he can draw?"

"Yes."

She nodded and beamed at me, then at his pictures. "Sweet. If he plays soccer, too..."

"I don't know," I said, and started hoping fervently that this wasn't going to be her "let's give Mom heart failure and develop a huge crush NOW" break-out moment.

Miss Priss grinned at me. "Don't worry, Mom, I'm not going to get all weird on you. I just... really like his voice. It seems familiar for some reason, makes me think of you, and Grandma, and it's kind of freaky. But I'm not all... you know. I just... like his voice."

And she sort of drifted out of the room after that.

I'm sure the migraine is exaggerating this, and when the ibuprofen kicks in, I will laugh merrily at it all.

Right?

Um... guys?

*whimper*