My Second Jackpot

Last month I got all gushy over Kenzie, my beautiful firstborn daughter, turning eighteen. Well 2016 is a year of milestone birthdays for the De Baets girls, as today, Caitlin (aka Baby Girl, aka Cait the Great) turns thirteen years old.

(Before I get any further, I want to heap some thanks and admiration on Scott, who is such a wonderful father to our girls. He kind of got relegated to footnote status in my post about Kenzie, so I want to make sure I recognize him at the start of this one. Thank you, Scotty, for giving so much of yourself to our daughters. They’re beyond blessed to have you as their dad.)

The big one-three is a milestone for all adolescents, marking the official entry into teendom. It’s a scary but exciting time for them, and if memory serves (iffy), comes with no shortage of chaos and confusion. Am I still a kid? Do I get more privileges now? Shit, will I have more responsibilities now too? Will I ever again wake up and not find new hair or zits somewhere?

Me? I’m delighted that I can now say, “I have two teenage daughters.” To be clear, I’m grateful for the convenience of lumping them together under that description, not necessarily for the reality of having two teenage daughters, which, frankly, is kind of terrifying.

But also kind of not.

I loved my babies as babies. In my experience, babies are (for the most part) fun and sweet, and their heads smell good, and their tushies don’t smell as good but at least they’re cute, and they make adorable little sounds (the babies, not their tushes, though an argument could be made for that too), and they’re super portable and you can pretty much make them do whatever you want. Kids are awesome too, for a lot of the same reasons and many more; watching your kids as they learn and try things and develop personalities and interests is thrilling as a parent. That’s a little person forming there! A little person that YOU made!

Seriously, how could you not love this?

I’ve loved my children with every ounce of my being for their entire lives, but—and this is where it might sound a little weird/creepy to some—I feel like it’s been the last few years when I’ve really fallen in love with them. Hear me out.

If you’ve ever been in love with someone, you’ll know what I’m talking about. It’s that feeling of pure, heart-leaping joy that you get when you see them walk into a room (all made even heart-leapier when they’re just as happy to see you). It’s wanting to hear them share the details of their day, even if you already know what they did. It’s longing for their company, wanting to spend time with them­—doing something or doing nothing—and it’s feeling that empty space inside when you’re missing them. It’s hating some things that they do without remotely disliking them. It’s taking an interest in what they’re interested in and conversating (it’s a word) about things—anything. It’s having inside jokes and laughing until it hurts. It’s raw vulnerability and the safety of knowing you can talk to them about anything.

This feeling isn’t exclusive to romantic relationships. It’s how I feel about my daughters, and it’s a feeling that didn’t start to really form until they got a little older and we started experiencing the world on closer to the same level. I don’t just love my grown-ish kids, I’m in love with them.

So today I think about Caitlin, one of the two loves of my life, and how awe-struck I am by the person she is. I mean, maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised, because her older sister is pretty fucking remarkable too, but the cynic in me constantly wonders how I—profoundly flawed, nowhere-close-to-having-my-shit-figured-out Erin—could have hit such a jackpot. Twice!

But there she is, my second jackpot. She’s a young lady who is immensely talented and smart and funny, all without a trace of arrogance. Caitlin is a kid who isn’t afraid to be weird and goofy and geek out about stuff and laugh at herself (God, she has a laugh that can turn my day around), but who can also be poised and well-spoken when life demands it. She loves music, can’t control her excitement when a song that she likes comes on (even if it’s on a playlist she knows by heart), and loves to sing along like me, though she’s way better at it. She taught herself how to play the ukulele and to write in calligraphy and to throw a devastating change-up and to rap “Guns and Ships“, and that was all just since Christmas.

Caitlin is so sensitive and her heart is so open that it is literally making me cry right now just thinking about it (cue her saying, “Yeah, but you cry at anything!” Guilty.). There have been observations that have come out of my youngest daughter’s mouth within the last year that, even when they’re motivated by her response to terrible evils, are so full of love and wisdom that it makes me speechless with pride.

When Caitlin loves, which is almost always, she loves deeply. When she hurts—and she does, as all of the biggest-hearted people do—she hurts deeply. Which devastates me, but also fills me with such thankfulness and hope to know that there’s a person like her in the world at all, let alone right here in my world.

In Kenzie’s 18^th birthday post, I did a little self-congratulating on getting her to adulthood, and I stand by that achievement. I know that we’re not quite there yet with Caitlin, but I know the five years between now and when she rings the adulthood bell are going to fly. They always do. There’s a lot to celebrate about getting to thirteen, but I also know we haven’t seen the last of the tough days either; honestly I’m not sure we’ve even scratched the surface yet (there’s the cynic again).

But that’s okay. If Caitlin is who she is at this point, after just thirteen years of learning and growing and questioning and laughing and crying and loving, I am nothing but hopeful and eager for who she’ll be in another five, or thirteen, or thirty years. She’s already way ahead of the curve. And yes, I’d think that even if I wasn’t in love with her.

Happy birthday, Baby Girl. You astonish me every damn day, and I love you bigger than the universe.