This coming Tuesday, January 20th, #1 Daughter, My Favorite Daughter (and only daughter) will be turning 27 years old.

I sit here at my laptop shaking my head.  Where have the years gone?  It seems just like yesterday that I took that “At Home” pregnancy test.  Those things were just coming onto the market.

MFH (My Favorite Husband) and I had gone on a camping trip to Colorado for our 2nd Wedding Anniversary.  (We were living in Chicago at the time.)  We had bought a tent and all the goodies that went along with it and drove to Rocky Mountain National Park to camp for our Anniversary trip.

I felt gross the entire time we were there.  I mean, I felt sick!  My “visitor” was late so I was on pins and needles all the time waiting for it to arrive (which it never did).

We ended up leaving Colorado a little early.  It had snowed (duh~May in the Rockies…in a tent!?!) and we were cold.  We ended up driving to visit the In-Laws in Des Moines, for a few days before driving the rest of the way to Chicago.  While we were in Des Moines, I had an, “Ah-Ha!” moment and hence the purchase of one of those “new” pregnancy tests.

The countdown was on for baby #1.

#1 Daughter ended up arriving 10 days after her due date.  We found out the day before she was born that she would be a girl.  Up until that time, we did not know.  We were really excited!!!

She finally arrived and she was PERFECT!!!  Still is!  She has grown into a beautiful woman.  She is confident, loyal, hard working…A top class lady.  I am proud of her AND I get to see her the end of this week!

The stories I could tell!    She was going to a poetry contest in first grade.  She was going to recite “Eletelephony.”  She knew that poem backwards and forwards!  The day of the contest, she woke up with strep.  High temp…sick kid!  She couldn’t go.  She was soooo upset!  She knew (and we did, too!) that she would have won.

Eletelephony

Laura Elizabeth Richards

Once there was an elephant,
Who tried to use the telephant—
No! No! I mean an elephone
Who tried to use the telephone—
(Dear me! I am not certain quite
That even now I’ve got it right.)
Howe’er it was, he got his trunk
Entangled in the telephunk;
The more he tried to get it free,
The louder buzzed the telephee—
(I fear I’d better drop the song
Of elephop and telephong!)

I wouldn’t trade a single second the privilege I have had of being her Mom.

This is us hamming it up in a photo booth last summer.