Dear Avery, Happy 18th birthday! I haven't seen you yet today because you have spent the past week doing business lady stuff with school and are currently on a flight home from Atlanta. But still, you asked would I decorate your bedroom door like I have done since you could walk, even if you weren't here to wake up to it this morning. (Of course I will! And bonus points that I could get it done the day before without any time pressure.) As you turn 18, this theme of grown up girls, not being as grown up as they think and still needing their mamas is one that I would like to explore with you in more depth. When you google "what every 18 year old should know", you get lists ranging from 18 (cute) to 100! These are life skills that I am proud to say you (and Alex) both have. You can sew a button, follow a recipe, make a doctor appointment and do the laundry. You can also change a light bulb AND change a diaper - the latter a skill that I did...
Where were you when you found out about the assassinations of JFK, MLK Jr, Princess Diana, on 9/11, when the space shuttle Challenger didn't clear our atmosphere? I bet you know with distinct clarity. What about October 7th 2023. Is that date etched in your mind? Or is it just another day - like maybe that's the day that a war started and you understand its historical significance? But do you know where you were, what you were doing, what you were feeling in those exact moments when you were seven or more hours behind in time zone and you woke up to news? I know. I remember that weekend with intense clarity. The highest and happiest of highs combined with some scary lows that have yet to dissipate even three years later. We skipped parents' weekend Alex's sophomore year because we scored U2 tickets at the Sphere and since we were already going to be out west we made plans for our own CU Boulder Parents' Weekend. It all started on Thurs Oct 5, we had an early fli...
Dear Avery, Seventeen years old! What in the world can I write to you that you do not already know about yourself?!? It is kind of amazing how once your personality shone through that I could pretty much copy and paste from recent years' birthday posts and it would probably hold true today. But I want to dig deep over the past year and hold a mirror up to you so that you can see what I see; the evolution to an even more incredible version of yourself. Because one thing I know, is that over the past year you have lived life on your terms. Has there been fighting? Yes. Crying? That too. More good days, than bad? Absolutely. So, I've decided to show you a year in the life by simply reviewing a year of my digital photo albums as I write - noting that these are the events worth photographing - it goes something like this: May 2024 - We finished shopping for sophomore semi formal dresses; you officially got your permit and started driving school lessons. You bid Alex a fond farewell...
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