Possumblog

::sigh:: Don't tell me I have ANOTHER one!

I suppose it was bound to happen, though. And you never know, just because I have suddenly become the owner of ANOTHER teenager today, doesn't necessarily mean that she will grow horns and a pointy tail and walk around with a chip on her shoulder. I hope.

But, yes, exactly 13 years ago on this date, Rebecca made her big red squalling entrance into the world. It's hard to describe that joy in anything other than words that sound cloying and trite and twee and hackneyed, but it was a joy nonetheless. She had a bit of a time getting here--labor took around 6 hours or so, and Reba had to get an epidural, which she didn't have to have when Ashley was born. And Rebecca was a stout little thing--10 pounds, 11 ounces of loud wiggliness. Weirdest thing is that she looked EXACTLY like me--well, minus all the various bodily fluids and junk--but I cannot describe the odd feeling of seeing well, me.

The years since then have been one thing after another--the freak snowstorm of '93, when the four of us had to bundle up in the den with a kerosene heater, Christmases, birthdays, first day of kindergarten, first day of real school, first day of middle school, moving--the time that we stayed in the house of a friend of ours down in Seagrove Beach when she was about six, and when I wasn't watching she managed to climb up on a stool, stick her legs out the back underneath the backrest, and push herself forward. Or rather, backwards. The stool flipped back, and she managed to hit her forehead on the front of the cabinets behind the stool, and since her legs were wedged under the space between the backrest and the seat, it was like getting her legs caught in a guillotine when she hit the floor. She cried and cried, but her robust construction saved her from serious harm, other than a big goose-egg on her noggin and two bruises on her shins.

Then there was the time we went to Chattanooga, and she got too far out into the pool and sucked down a couple of lungsful of water. I had to scramble over and get her out, but water terrified her for years afterwards. She's better now that she knows how to swim, though.

Oh, and all those long nights at the soccer park--all that sweat and grass.

She's grown up so much. She sees a lot, too. Stuff you wouldn't expect a kid to take notice of. She still asks those hard questions--good questions--about life and God and why people act they way they do and how does wind work and things like that.

Of all of them, she's probably the closest one to me not only in looks, but in disposition as well. She tends to lie back and take things in and not say anything until later. Part of it's shyness, part of it seems to be her wanting to try to figure out things in her mind before saying anything.

Such a girl. Such a teenaged girl.

Posted by Terry Oglesby at September 29, 2005 10:40 AM