happy birthday, heidi

 It was fun tonight, at the end of the night, to go cruising through some old files on the computer looking for pictures of you.

I found some.

 Here you are with Kari at Green Lake.  She was a wild woman back then.

You were patient and a great baby wrangler.

 Here's  you and Kirby when I was sure you were the sweetest, most adorable pair of girls who had ever lived.

(Know that feeling?)

 Then you two grew up:

 Here's you and Dad,

 And you and me,

And this classic birthday photo:

I was thinking about this last night how these two days of the year, August 25 and 26, Dan's birthday and yours, used to be like a National Holiday.  

And you can see what a big night like this could do to a girl's nerves.  It was hotter than hell, no doubt.   We didn't have any air conditioning at all.  It was at that crescendo point of a birthday party where it's getting late, and time for cake.

Pssht.  Get this girl her blanky, a big glass of cold water, and let's go sit in front of the fan.

Here's tonight--you and your most adorable, sweetest girls in the whole world:

I tell this freely to other parents:

Adult children are a pleasure I never imagined.

You muddle along, yelling about shit, and cleaning up weird messes, keeping the bills paid and the laundry from mildewing, and it just feels like Scruffy-ville.

Nobody told me I was growing my best friends.

I should have known.  My mom is an angel who would do anything for me.

My grandma doted on me and I adored her, just like my  mom and her grandmas.

I still didn't get it.

Now I do.

Heidi?

You're something else.  We laugh about how you parent your first kid like she's the third one because of all of my babies you helped me raise.  And it's true.   This is an absurdly rascally situation, but also nothing that can't be summed up by an eye roll.

And you share those babies with me so freely.  No, I don't put her in time out.  But today we did exchange a brief little snappy conversation about her shoes left in the car after grocery shopping.

I said, "Don't forget your shoes."

She said, "Grandma, I only have two hands."

(Yeah, and two feet. Why are your shoes not on them?)

I didn't say that.  I said, as I lugged her sister and car seat across the seat and out the door, "Girl. I got zero hands.  GET YOUR SHOES."

She did.

Oh my goodness, I love her.

Happy Birthday, Heidi.

love forever, Mom and Dad and Everyone