so, my daughter is engaged to be married…

I’m still not exactly sure how that happened.

Back when I first started blogging she looked like this…

Then I blinked or something, and she started to look more like this…

And this…

Then, when my back was turned, she morphed into this…

I was left scratching my head in bewilderment while she packed up her clothes and giant panda and moved onto her college campus.

And now this…

I remember almost as soon as she was born, during that sweltering September of 1996 in Charleston, SC, people warning me how quickly my time with her would go.  As a brand new mother, I didn’t want to hear that.  At only twenty-three years of age myself, I was overwhelmed with just the amount of dirty diapers she was producing.  The idea of her someday walking down the aisle in a flouncy white dress seemed eons away.  Well…it wasn’t.  Because here we are.

Now I find myself wanting to stop that weary young mother in the aisle of Publix, who is frantically trying to stuff a paci in their squalling little one’s mouth so that they can make an intelligent decision about pasta brands.  I want to grab her by her sagging shoulders and shake her a little and tell her that IT is true:  your baby is going to grow up and meet someone and marry them and leave you.

Honestly, there were times when that might have encouraged me a little.  Once when she was two and in the throes of potty training, she marched triumphantly into the kitchen where I was, hiked up her dress to reveal that she was wearing a Pull-up.  “Where are your big girl panties?” I asked her.  “I took them off because I had to poop,” she replied.  If someone had appeared at that moment and told me that this defiant little creature was going to marry and move someday, I may have smiled a little.

Once, when she was five years-old, we were shopping at Wal-Mart.  Her baby brother was needing a nap.  I only had a few more items to track down and throw in the cart.  Little Miss was being grumpy.  And sassy.  And smart-mouthed.  I was trying to be patient and just finish the task, but I finally felt I needed to grab her arm, apply a bit of pressure, and explain to her in hushed tones that if she didn’t change her attitude that she’d be getting a little surprise when we got to the car.  She looked at me calmly with her big, brown eyes and said, “If you don’t let go of my arm right now, I’m going to start screaming that you’re not my mother.”  I did two things…  1.  I informed her that I could prove in several different ways that I was most certainly her mother, so if she wanted to scream, go ahead.  Also, she was still getting the surprise.  2.  I made a mental note to tell her dad that she couldn’t watch “American’s Most Wanted” with him anymore, even if they are doing a segment on preparing your child for contact with a hostile stranger.  At that moment, if someone had shared to hold on tight, that these years would fly by, I’m sure I would have shouted, “Well, hallelujah!”

Fast-forward a few years to the pre-teen angst and eye rolls and sarcasm and fights with siblings.  Yeah, an empty room on some of those occasions would not have left me teary-eyed.

The thing is though that the good of having a daughter…of having my daughter…far, far outweighed the not-so-bad.  We had a lot of laughter, a lot of singing, a lot of reading, a lot of ballet recitals, a lot of episodes of “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” a lot of sleepovers, a lot of hair-dos, a lot of batches of cookies, a lot of fun and love and heart.

So, as I look back over the last eighteen years, I do, in many ways, wonder where the years went…as cliche’ as that might sound.  Because it hasn’t seemed like enough time.  I don’t feel ready to help her choose a wedding gown, when wasn’t it just yesterday that we were picking out prom gowns?  I’m not equipped to help her pick out a pattern for her dishes, when it was just last week that I was reminding her to unload the dishwasher.  I can’t watch her walk down the aisle of a church yet, because I still haven’t completely recovered from her talking back to me in that aisle of Wal-mart so many years ago.  It’s too soon.  I’m not ready.  I want more of it.  All of it.

But I can’t stop it.  And actually, deep down, I don’t want to.  Like almost all parents, we want our children to be happy.  I want my daughter to pursue God’s will for her life, and His will has graciously included her marriage to a godly young man.  I am happy about that, thankful for that.

So, in almost a year, I, the mother-of-the-bride, will stand up in the first row of a local church, wearing a dress that I probably hate and lamenting that my hair is too frizzy, and watch my amazing, lovely, sweet, dazzling little girl get married.  My eyes will mist over.  I will be thinking about the years I spent raising her and how they were difficult and confusing and short and wonderful.  I will be praying that her marriage will someday result in something similar.  And I won’t be able to help hoping in a small way that her little bundle is just as difficult to potty-train as she was.