It's official: We have a teen in the hizzouse!

Yesterday was D's 13th birthday!

First, she got an extra hour to celebrate, thanks to the end of Daylight Savings Time.

Then, when she got up, she got to see me.

Well, you'd think that was enough, but no. We had ordered her a cake from Polkadots Cupcake Factory (they make more than just cupcakes!) just a few blocks away at West Campus. She'd requested Bill Cipher, and I wanted to make her a cake, but given our current lives (and, honestly, Saturday was hugely challenging with Mal, but we're figuring it out), I knew that wasn't a given. The bakery did an AWESOME job with it, and she loved it!

Also, their fondant is delicious! :)

The T-shirt I got her isn't here yet, but will be either tomorrow or Tuesday, and James is getting her a wired keyboard and mouse (I know some people swear by wireless, but if you're gaming or drawing, they can be a PitA), but wants her to shop with him so she can pick them out. She's gotten cards and money from grandparents, and her dad gave her a beautifully-bound and illustrated copy of "The Hobbit."

When Daphne was born (which you can read about here), I had no idea what I was doing. I was freaked out and had some pretty intense postpartum depression, even though I didn't fully recognize that that was a "thing" until I was over it.

After the first eight months, though, once we got free from Boys Town, I hit a parenting stride. Throughout problems with my marriage, financial uncertainties, and all sorts of "life" things, I always felt like I was a pretty good mom.

Having only one child was easy. Well, Daphne was an easy child. For the longest time, were together almost all of the time, and I loved it. Then Daphne started doing gymnastics four days a week, and then I started working, and sometime around the age of 10, she started liking to stay home and do her own thing. By the time we moved into the Nuthaus, Daphne was ready to be pretty independent... and maybe I wasn't so ready.

Over the past year and a half or so, I've realized several things:

1) Although I sincerely did not realize it, I bullied my child at times. I used my authority and size to force her into compliance because I was too lazy to use relationship and discipline. I have apologized to her about a lot of things, namely that, as the first child, she was kind of like a beta testing of my parenting, and how although I appreciate that this release will hopefully be better, I regret having made my mistakes with her.

2) The things about Daphne that bother me the most are the areas in which she is most like me. She has an opinion, she has an attitude, she is a bit profane, and she wants to be in white-knuckle-hold charge of everything about herself.

3) Daphne has become a completely different person since I stopped "strongly suggesting" that she do things she doesn't want to do. For the most part, she's settled comfortably into being an introvert. This is not surprising, given how artistic and creative she is. And her art has improved incredibly. Also, sometimes, I feel like I don't know her, and that makes me a little sad. She reminded me the other day, "Did you used to be worried I was too attached to you?" It's true; I did. I have always pushed her to be independent. I just didn't expect so much so soon, I suppose. I am grateful, though, that she's becoming who God made her to be without my interference.

Halloween night, after I went to bed early as usual with the baby, Daphne stayed up talking with James until 3:30. So while I miss being her go-to, I am glad that she has someone else she trusts and whose opinion she values right here in the house.

Yesterday, I was going through my memory banks, thinking about D's previous birthdays.

Her first year, we had a party at my sister's house; I'd made a boom box cake with a small remote control for Daphne's "smash cake." She was barely interested in it, but held on to the Winnie the Pooh spoon Pappy and Nana gave her all day. (Literally. Even when she was in the swing outside.)

Her second birthday, I made Bob and Larry chocolate chip cookie "cakes," and we had the party at the "butterfly park" near out house in Las Vegas. I hid some treasures in the sand box and the kids loved that. I remember it being very cold and windy.

We'd just moved to Sherman in the July before Daphne's third birthday. Since we had a bunch of left-over July 4th decorations, we had an American-flag-themed party, and I made a flag cake. Two new friends we'd just met since moving to Sherman came over and celebrated, and my parents visited from Las Vegas.

Daphne's fourth birthday was at Old Settlers Park in Sherman, and was Clifford-themed. This time, it was 84 degrees, and the red icing melted off of the cake!

I'm completely blanking on Daphne's fifth birthday. How weird is that? Time to pull out the Maxtor external hard drive ($100 for 8mb of memory!) and figure it out. (I did, and this is why I have all of these pictures. Still haven't figured this one out, though!)

Okay, weird... I guess we just took her to Chuck E. Cheese! :)

For D's sixth birthday, we rented out the skating rink and had a Harry-Potter-themed party. She was skating twice a week there for a while. She loved it!

Oh, my goodness, these little kids aren't little kids anymore!

When Daphne turned seven, we had the party at our house. I made a jungle cake and a snake cake. A whole bunch of homeschool and church friends came over, and the kids played outside the whole time.

When her eighth birthday rolled around, we went to Herman Baker Park and tried to slide down the grassy hill. I bought a delicious Dr. Pepper cake from Yahoo! Bakery and decorated it with an owl, since the theme was "Hoot," a book by Carl Hiaassen. We also had pancakes, in honor of Mother Paula's House of Pancakes. Now I want to read that book again!

I might have geeked out a little bit on the invitations.

Both Daphne's ninth and tenth birthday parties were at Gymnastics Sport Center, and they were loads of fun. Tian and Travis were there for her 10th, and they rode around the gym on their Striders. One year, I cut the cakes into individual servings and made them look like sponges, because Daphne had wanted sponge cake (and, yes, it was actually sponge cake). The year before that, I made her cake look like a gym mat, and I used the topper to one of her trophies as the gymnast.

We moved to Austin right before Daphne turned 11. We had a party at Mueller Lake Park, and I tried to make a 3-D Tardis cake, but I used a bad recipe. The cake wasn't dense enough and it fell over, so I made a GIANT "cake pop." It was messy but delicious.

Then last year, we had a scavenger hunt out of our house, with Minecraft-looking snacks.

So... This year, D didn't want to "do" anything. We had cake, we had presents, and she was happy. Her online friends feted her, too.

I cannot tell you how much I love this kid. I love that she knows who she is and she's comfortable in that. I love that she can't be bothered by a lot of distractions typical to teen girls (yet and ever, Lord willing). I love her snarky personality, even, sometimes, when she turns it on me (I can take as well as I can give, I hope!). I love her laugh and her smile. I just love her tons and will forever. Glad she's my girl!