My darling daughter...

I finally got up the nerve to share my blog with my daughter, Rachel. There was silence for a while as she read it, and then the first thing out of her mouth? - "How can you call yourself the world's worst procrastinator? I'm the world's worst!"

She's certainly right about that. Like mother, like daughter. Only worse.

(I can get away with saying that because I don't have my own mother chiming in with memories of how unbearable I was to live with at times.)

On a brighter note........it's my daughter's 22nd birthday today. Happy Birthday, honey!

Sadly, this is the first birthday I can remember that I wasn't able to celebrate with her. Even on her 21st birthday last year, she chose to have her first legal drink with me and her older brother before going out with friends.

This year Rachel advertised her birthday plans to friends through her Facebook page, and managed to pull together a group of about twelve to spend the evening bar hopping along Grand Avenue in St. Paul. I'm always behind the times when it comes to cultural trends - so no, I'm not on Facebook - and if I were, I'm not sure I would have been invited to be one of her "friends." (For the same reasons I probably shouldn't have shared my blog URL with her - what was I thinking!) But my sister Mary's daughter is Rachel's "friend" - and so my sister found out for me where her starting point for the evening was going to be.

"Mary," I said excitedly, "Don't you think Rachel would get a kick out of it if Daniel [my son] and I surprised her by showing up tonight?"

Now my sister Mary is a real sweetheart, and always has a smile on her face. The smile is there whether she's happy or upset, whether she agrees or disagrees. When you know her well you can figure out which are the true smiles and which are the nervous or half-hearted ones. Her response to my question? - definitely a nervous smile. I got the point.

So, I wisely decided it was best if I just stay out of the picture tonight. Rachel's birthday cheesecake will have to wait until tomorrow.

I guess my little girl is all grown up now. It's hard to let go.

By the way, can you believe someone as young looking as me could possibly have a 22-year-old daughter? (Sometimes a person has to fish for compliments. I'm not too proud. :-)


Woodbury Facial Soap ad, McCall's magazine, Sept 1951