Daniella Turns 21

March 14, 1989.  My first child is born.  She's about six weeks early (all of my kids were early to varying degrees).  She's barely a football in my arms.  I'm about 10 minutes late to her birth thanks to traffic on the 10 Freeway as I race from Pomona to Monterey Park.

She's the first born Malena child, "One of Four" for those who are Borg-inclined.  One of the "Mighty Four".  She is also a fast learner, and even at an early age, starts establishing patterns of behaviour that you can see in her for many years to come.  She loves swinging, to skate, and helping her sister and brothers like a big sister should.

Her every accomplishment is something she proudly displays and shares.  She knows she can do just about anything, and she's ready to prove it at any time.  Teachers love her.  She spends her early years in one bedroom with her siblings in "those bunk beds".  She tends to feel like she has to take control to make sure some things get done right (not sure where she got that from....).

Middle school comes and she's playing the trombone.  She smiles a lot and is coming into her own, becoming a true band-geek and doing well in school.  She has a few pet peeves, and could do without a couple teachers, but she survives 6th, 7th and 8th grade and a brand new middle school, not to mention two moves of the family (to our first house, then to our own home)

Boys start catching her eye.  You'd never be able to find consistency in those she ends up liking, so I gave up trying to figure out what "her type" was.  She doesn't really date until she meets a young man who she is still very close to even today.  She's an uber band geek while at Spruce Creek High.  She finished high school, and life after high school hits like a brick.  Some time is spent away from home briefly.  She starts working, eventually making her way to management at local restaurants.  A car, another car, lots of rims, stereos, and eventually a car wreck (as a passenger) that comes very close to killing my baby girl (19 years old, almost 6 feet tall, very mature looking... my baby girl).

Now she's 21.  "Legal".  She's an adult "in every way" as far as the law is concerned.  How can that be?  She was just born a little while ago... wasn't she?

My little girl is all grown up.  She's becoming a CNA.  She has her own money and her own plans with her own friends.  I love her, she loves me.. but she's moving on.  It's very... hard to take.  But at the same time, it's what happens, and as much as I will miss her when she ends up on her own (soon, too soon?), I also can be happy that I have a lifetime of memories with her.  The good, the odd, the weird, the uncomfortable, and even the "bad".  It's all been a learning journey.  She'll always be my first-born, my little football, Danigurrrl, Mighty 1 of 4, that wench, that beautiful woman, the "male version of me", the entity who stole my heart on March 14, 1989.

I love you, Dani.