Ode to my 14 Year Old

First I would like to apologize for the lack of activity on the blog as of late.  However if you have been keeping up with our downward spiral as of late then you would have been able to predict of that of course the battery to the laptop would crap out.  So really you only have yourselves to blame.

If these things are real then I need... all of them.

Moving on...
We spend a lot of time on this blog speaking to the challenges of special needs parenting and trying to manage our toddler.  We spend a lot of time greasing our ill lubricated wheels since they are the squeakiest.  I wanted to spend some time complimenting the wheel that helps keep us traveling smoothly.  I am speaking of my oldest child.
 Whenever I take my kid to school late (which is often) I have to walk her in and fill out a little form that states that I am excusing her tardiness and the reason for the late arrival.  I assume that the motivation for learning why we are late is so that they can make some kind of spread sheet or bar graph depicting how many kids were late and for what reason in order to determine what, if any action can be taken by the school to reduce late arrivals.
One may safely assume that the heavy hitters on such a study would be; slept in, traffic, and alarm clock malfunction.  Due to the radness of my child, there will be a few new categories that must be added to this study. Included in our reasons for being late are; had to destroy Deathstar, zombies, elves, all that jazz, ninjas, dragons, the mummy, sparkly vampires, tardis malfunction, and bears.

True, it is more likely that all of these crazy awesome, if not 100% accurate reasons for arriving at school late will probably be swept under the excuse rug under the heading of "other", but this is just a small example of the all consuming coolness that is my daughter.
When I look at her I am struck with an emotion which can only be described as equal parts pride and envy.  I call it Prenvy.  Pride at how mind bendingly, reality splitingly, life changingly amazing she is.  Envy at the fact that she is miles ahead of where I was at her age.  My kid is 14 years old and is already better at everything that I wanted to do when I was 18.
At 14 years of age she is surfing, winning archery tournaments, playing Dungeons & Dragon's on a regular basis, and en route to becoming a legitimate professional entertainer.  At 14 years of age I was still pretty sure that there was some way that I could become a real life Batman.

Without the nipples though

She has lived her whole life knowing that her sister's health is fragile and any plan that she has made may be shelved due to Maggie's crap immune system.  She has taken this reality of her life with grace and minimal whining.  Well, much less whining then I would have done... still do.
It's weird looking up to someone that you are raising, but it is something that I find myself doing regularly.  

L&C