~Kaitlyn Anne Fall 2008~

Today my youngest daughter turns the highly esteemed age of fourteen. Well, she thinks it’s esteemed because it sounds so much more respectable of a ‘teenage’ number then 13 which just sounds like a newbie position as far as teenagehood goes. She’s explained this theory to me in great detail. She LOVES a good theory.

I’m glad she’ll feel more worldly and wise with this new age assignment. She made a good rookie teen at 13 years old, so I can only hope and pray that will carry over into the all so important 14 year old designation.

Raising Kaitlyn has been both a delight and extremely interesting for me. She is like other children on one hand, on the other she’s never been like other children. The simple truth is she is different in her own unique way. I’ve always felt awkward talking about Kaitlyn’s differences because most of it falls in the lines of you have to see it to believe it, know her to understand her and witness how great her smile is to see she’s also a normal kid, with a few extraordinary bonuses.

I knew something was up with her by the time she was a year old. She was already talking up a storm which threw people for a loop because she was so teenie tiny. An early talker didn’t exactly send out red flags, but by the time she was 16 months old she started drawing things. For example, hearts and little stick people. Babies just don’t normally do that.  I won’t admit what age she started reading because that always feels like gratuitous information. And lets just say, she’s been 13 and taking AP High School courses. (no matter how I talk about this kid, it still sounds gratuitous) So, ya know, one of those kids…..Of course I wish I could claim she inherited her highly evolved brain from yours truly, Me, and you all just didn’t know you were in the presence of a genius all this time……….but sadly no, I was and am, just a normal strain of brain.

Kaitlyn is fascinated that I don’t know all the things she sees and comprehends. The jig was up by the 3rd grade when I could no longer look over her specially designed school work and help out if needed. Until that point in time I’m certain I had pulled off a brilliant Mother mastermind facade, but when her homework surpassed my abilities (super ego ouch), I was roasted and had to fess up I didn’t know everything. It only got worse from there. I haven’t helped my daughter with her homework in yearsssssssss….A humbling truth to fess up.

But on the flip side, it’s rather cool to watch her mind work. A few years ago she redesigned lobster traps for the good people of Maine because she had watched an episode of something or other on TV. She deemed their traps inferior and thus sketched out a new lobster trap and requested I send it to the captains of the ships ‘over there.” Once, Kaitlyn measured the interior of our home, up and down and around, just so she could calculate air space by the cubic square footage. I asked her if it was homework and she said, “No, I was just curious”  Yaaa, I’ve often wondered if this child actually came from my uterus or another planet— Just last night she brought me a bottle of Lysol disinfectant and let me know it was ridiculous that cleaners only kill 99.9% of bacteria and she was going to chemically enhance cleaners once she becomes a part time scientist (she has other things on her agenda for the other half of her time) so people can get their full money’s worth at a 100% kill rate. As she explained, leave that .1% and the little singular bacteria bugger will reproduce! You go girl. Just wait everyone, she has notebooks filled with ideas to make the world a better place for us all……….

And then, there is Kaitlyn the human. Although I can’t join her on the evolution of brain power, she forgives me because I take her fly fishing. We hang out and read books. We talk writing because she loves that as well. Writing is the one thing I claim I genetically passing onto her and she’s gracious enough to let me take the credit. Of course, if her novel gets published before my novel……nevermind~ Kaitlyn is an amazing drummer, and has self taught herself various other musical instruments. My Mother gets huge bonus points for being her mentor in that department since musical inclinations evidently skipped a generation. I am without musical skills. Kaitlyn has a close knit group of girlfriends and when she’s with them she acts just like any other teenage girl, which I am thankful for.

I’ve walked a very slim line all these years in my attempt to give Kaitlyn a normal childhood and let her mind do it’s thing. It hasn’t been easy to make the right choices for her, hold her back there, let her go there.  Keep her home for a summer of fly fishing and camping or let her go to Hopkins University for a summer of brain tantalizing challenge. For fourteen years it’s been exciting and worrisome, amazing and mind boggling with this child of mine……Time will tell if I took the right turns, and made the right choices by her. I look forward to seeing what this kid does with her life~ Could be very interesting……..

Happy Birthday Darlin,

Love Mamma