happy {13}

Before this week is out, my daughter will turn 13.  She'll go to bed on Friday night as a "tween" and awaken on Saturday a teenager.  

Am I ready for this???  Am I prepared?  Can anyone possibly be prepared?  I recently posted this on Twitter:

"Parenting isn't really parenting until your daughter is 12. Now it has begun."

Honestly, and I'm not trying to pick on parents of preschoolers, there's a huge/vast/enormous difference in parenting a child you can pick up and carry everywhere than in parenting a child who:

1. Could quite possibly pick you up and carry YOU
2. Can text 755 characters per micro second
3. Knows the words to every Katy Perry top 40 hit even though YOU'D never expose her to this [questionable, at best] music
4. Must abide by her school [and Dad's] dress code
5. One minute is happy and sweet, the next is moody and not so sweet
6. If left alone in a Target store, could spend upwards of thousands of dollars in a few short minutes
7. Doesn't eat meat [by choice] and prefers only products not tested on animals
8. Has her own political views and seems to prefer Canada to the US [though she's never been to Canada]
9. Can run faster than you'll ever be able to again [meaning there's a chance she could flee on foot, if provoked]
10. Could watch [for hours on end] those ridiculous real life tv programs about some poor woman murdered and left beside a gravel road in the woods by her 2nd cousin's boyfriend who was once gay but is now a polygamist.  

Seriously, parenting changes.  The risks get greater and the odds of her falling in love only increase with age.  I miss the chubby little blond girl who loved hamburgers.  Yet, I adore the lanky, thin, vegetarian that lives with us now.  She is beautiful because she's who she is and I love her a bunch.

Happy 13 Catherine Alexis {aka Allie} Monck!