My Emily

Okay, what would you call a young lady who gets a 4.0 her first year of college….. while working…. who also, without ever being asked (ever) helps out every single day with household chores. She literally gets home from work, changes clothes, looks for something that might need to be done, and then sits down to study.

She never has a pay day without insisting that some go toward groceries, and never fails to also do other lovelies…like buying candy for her little sister or taking her family out to the movies. She never complains about helping with laundry or mowing, never bemoans her schoolwork….okay, she is human so she’s been known to grumble on occasion about work….especially on Mondays!

Anyway, I call this girl my oldest daughter, Emily. And you can call me extremely proud.

I was younger than she is when I had her…and before her had never even held a baby before. Just dolls. She became my human doll, and my human doll and I pretty much grew up together. I remember the first time I held her, in a hospital bed in Wichita, Kansas. I was a teenaged girl many miles away from home (my husband was in the Air Force at the time) and I even had to ring for a nurse to show me how to change the diaper. (Unlike my dolls, this one moved.) After the sweet nurse helped me, Emily and I sat alone on the bed - I looked into her impossibly beautiful big blue eyes and thought, “This oughta be fun.”

And it was.

I homeschooled Em and her sisters, right from Kindergarten. Since we moved around alot, enrolling them in and out and in and out of schools didn’t sound that promising - so, we launched headfirst into homeschooling. It’s been an incredible experience for all of us, but I’d always kind of worried what it would be like when they had to write college essays. Would the professor look for something different from what I had looked for? She got perfect scores on each of her essays, so I’m breathing easier.

We went and bought her a special “We’re so freakin’ proud of you!” gift today which we’ll give to her when she gets off work.

You know, I still see that same little baby when I look in her eyes, which are still impossibly beautiful big blue eyes. But now I think, “This is fun!”

And it is.

Make each moment count double,
~Joi