Sixteen years ago today, I became a parent.
Me.
The one who thought I didn't want children when I got married, and then thought I wanted five when I moved away from family to Richmond and met someone with a large family.
The one who'd never spent time around a newborn. The one family I regularly babysat for when I was a teenager always had their kids in bed before they went out at night. I was the youngest in my family so no little siblings to practice on. I didn't have nieces or nephews and Kayla was the first grandchild. I was the first of my close friends to have a baby. And Pierce is an only child.
We'd only been living in Richmond for a year. We had no family in town and just a small circle of friends from our new church (none with children.)
And along came Kayla...and somehow we survived and seemingly succeeded.
Pierce & I worked full-time, she went to a daycare center for 3 years then stayed with a neighbor for a year then hung out with my mother-in-law while going to preschool and then starting grade school. She was a girl scout, played soccer and still does well in school. Kayla is a traveler, an animal lover, a musician, and a baker. She's smart, independent, creative and tolerant.
And I can't wait to see what the next 16 years have in store for our little girl who will be graduating high school before we know it.
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