When you have your first child it is a magical experience. You look at them in wonder and awe, disbelieving that you had anything to do with the creation of this perfect little person. You are full of hopes and dreams for them; you want them to live the best life they can and to always have all their heart desires.
Those first few weeks home from the hospital are a blur. You and this little person are getting to know one another. You are sleep deprived and cranky but looking at that little face as she looks up at you makes your heart melt and you know that you will do anything in your power to protect her and give her what she needs for the rest of your life.
Soon she is crawling all over the house and making a mess of everything. Your once well-ordered world is somehow in chaos. You walk into the bathroom and she's in the process of unrolling a jumbo pack of toilet paper, a beautiful blond haired blue-eyed princess in the midst of a snowy fall of paper, laughing like she is the most clever thing in the world. You can't help but be proud of her ingenuity in maneuvering through a baby gate and a safety latched bathroom cupboard; she's obviously a genius. You put the cleaning products on high shelves as you grin with maternal pride.
Then she's walking around, playing dress-up in your clothes and high heels, bossing her dolls around when they don't want to do things her way. "Do it myself!" becomes the phrase of the day, in every area of her life. Bathing, making her bed, "tying" her shoes, brushing her teeth; she is an independent spirit, one who knows her own mind. No one has ever told her she shouldn't be confident in her ability to take care of herself, so she does it without thinking.
Then comes school and the playground politics that come with it. You watch her making friends as a kindergartner and the days of play dates and slumber parties has started. Soon you're cheering her on as she tests for the next belt in Tae Kwon Doe or as she makes the game winning free-throw on the basketball court. You laugh at her playing an outrageous character in a school play with all the flair and drama of Mae West and Bette Midler's love child; you burst with pride as she sings the National Anthem and any number of solos in the school choir.
You cry as she goes through her first heartbreaks; love is something she can't control and it kills her! And it kills you to see her learning all of her lessons about love the hard way, as she gives her heart too freely to boys who don't deserve it. But you've raised her well and taught her to respect herself and to be strong and make the right decisions; you know she's not going to throw herself away on someone that isn't worthy of her. And she doesn't.
She goes to college, gets her first apartment, works a part-time job and is basically the wonder woman you always knew she would be. And though your heart hurts when you walk past her empty bedroom and sometimes you look at her baby pictures for hours on end, you are so proud of the young woman she has become, the young woman you always knew she would become. And soon she is bringing home a young man; one who treats her like a queen but isn't too intimidated to challenge her. One who is as scarily smart as she is, who speaks to her as an equal and a contemporary. One who you know, even the first time you see them together, will be her partner in life. And though it's lovely planning a wedding, you are sad too because you know in a sense she will never be "all yours" ever again.
Soon, these two are making a life for themselves together. You don't always agree with the direction they choose to go in, but you are so proud that they are making good choices for themselves. You become a grandparent, something you never dreamed you wanted to be until you were one. And you watch her, looking down at his little face with all that beautiful awe and wonder and you realize at that moment that you've never stopped looking at her the same way.
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