Tomorrow the Prom

Before you begin this blog, you should launch this link and just let it play in the background.

My Dad has a famous saying (well, OK, it's famous in our family)..."Tomorrow the prom."

He said it often when my brother and I were kids and always as a way to tease my Mom that we were growing up quickly. Now, he & Mom say it to me at each milestone in Janan's life.

As a kid the statement seemed ridiculous. Now, it can bring tears to my eyes.  There are moments it seems like just yesterday I was impatiently awaiting word from Guatemala that I could bring my daughter home.  I remember time literally ticking away second by second.  Every second was one I wasn't holding her, rocking her, knowing whether she was happy or sad, hungry or fed.  

But, from the minute she was placed in my arms it seems like months go by in seconds and years in just days.  Wasn't I just rocking her?  Singing to her?  Reading I Love You, Stinky Face?

Already she's learned to walk, talk, feed herself, and dress herself.  She's started school, had her first crush, gotten her first stitches, danced in her first dance recital, played her first piano recital and attended her first overnight, week-long camp.  

Though we didn't share the day of her birth, we've shared 10 birthdays with themes ranging from Blue's Clues to Movie Making, where she and her best friends wrote, directed and produced their own movie.

I've watched her go off to kindergarten, make her first banana bread (while singing to her favorite CD, Cassandra's Angel), bake her first rolls for our Thanksgiving dinner, develop an almost obsessive infatuation with rock hounding (about which she gave a 20+ minute presentation for her end-of-year, third grade presentation) and Harry Potter, and develop her own passionate views on world situations.

Just today, while cleaning her room, I discovered a tooth.  When I asked whose tooth it was she said, very matter of factly, "It's mine.  I didn't tell you when I lost it and I hid it, to see if there really was a Tooth Fairy."  Then she looked at me, grinning from ear to ear, and said, "There ISN'T a Tooth Fairy, is there?"  I nearly cried.  Not only did she figure this out, but she did it with a mini scientific experiment!  (VERY Janan!)

With all the craziness in our society and world today, I've learned (repeatedly) that I can't wrap her in Charmin to protect her from all that is and is sure to come.  I also can't stop time.  But, as I watch this amazing child grow, what I do know is I want to make the world a better place for her and I'll continue to fight for that every day, because, before I know it tomorrow will be the Prom.