Today is my daughter's birthday. She's 12. Which means this is the last birthday I can really celebrate, because after this she will be a teenager, and -- whoo boy. Not ready for that. Not with a girl who's already taller than me (in the 90th percentile for height at her check-up this week; I'm probably in about the 5th percentile for 42-year-olds). I need a few more years of pre-teen, and I'm not going to get it.

 

She's a sweet, healthy, happy girl, though, and maybe she'll be a sweet, healthy, happy teen. It could happen. There have been a few, right? At any rate, I'll enjoy these 12s, and take comfort in the fact that she'd still rather have a Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen CD than a rap CD, a Clifford video than a PG-13 movie. And I'll try to forget that the pediatrician said I might want to have her start shaving her armpits. She may be big, well-developed and hairy, but she's still just a little girl. Just ignore those pimples, okay?