Lucky Number Seven

This weekend we'll be celebrating Miss Awesome's seventh birthday. She's super excited. I'm a little conflicted. As we were running errands yesterday she was wearing "high heels" (about an inch) and a dress that's starting to get too short. I turned around and nearly fell over with astonishment at the preview of a gorgeous, leggy, teenager stalking along. Then she came up and held my hand and for a little while she was my baby again.

Miss Awesome is not an easy child, nor has she ever been. In her first couple of months she never wanted to be put down, and it was only thanks to a wonderful cadre of women -- Aunt Peg, Grammy Vi, and Mimi in particular -- who took turns toting her around Vermont that I was able to function those first three months. As a toddler she fought tooth and nail when we stopped carrying her. She spent hours sitting on floors, wailing because she wanted me to pick her up, and I just had to wait her out. We were tortured by defiant screaming whenever she was buckled into her car seat. I had to take away her dresses for a year when she refused to wear underwear. More recently I took away all her toys when she wouldn't clean her room.

Will gets extraordinarily upset by her defiance, and we both struggle to redirect her energy from anger to something more positive. Nonetheless I am astonished by and grateful for her spunk. True, Miss Awesome regularly renders me speechless with frustration, but still I look at her and see someone absolutely amazing. She has a truly indomitable spirit, and I can only imagine what she will do with it. Too often I see girls who are meek and quiet and nice. Miss Awesome is not, and hopefully never will be, nice. She is proud and strong and confident and intense and powerful. She is beautiful and determined and strong-willed and creative.

She is a gift.

This weekend we celebrate the anniversary of her birth, but in my heart I will be celebrating my good fortune in being her mother.