14

Well, in about 90 minutes it will officially be my Danielle's 14th birthday. I am sitting here also thinking that my niece Lauren is turning 15 the day after.

To say that my daughters are close with Lauren is to do a great disservice to the relationship that they have. Its akin to saying that Hitler was kind of a jerk. My family is close, most people know this about us. There is really no difference between cousins and siblings, we're just all sort of in the shit together.

Tomorrow we're going to celebrate. We're going to jump in the pool, eat great food thanks to my sister Kathy, sing Happy Birthday and have our cake. The two birthday girls will open their gifts and likely make plans on how to spend their money. There will be a lot of laughing, we do that. We're good at it.

There will be a moment something like this one. I'll steal a view of the room and see my family there together. They will all be happy. Happy to be present, to share in the celebration with their nearest and dearest. My father will look around too, and he'll probably say something like, "Ain't this great? Ain't it? My God Monique! What did we do?!" My folks love it when we're all together.

Everytime we walk into the kitchen we'll see photos of Pat. We will each take a silent timeout and wish he was there and imagine where he might be sitting, what his laugh sounded like and what crazy story he might tell.

Anyhow, this is how we do. I'm sitting here trying to put into words how I'm feeling about my little Danielle-y Belly turning 14. She's a tough nut that one. She is at that age where one minute she's my best friend and the next I'm the devil incarnate. Those moments seem to be coming less often, the light at the end of the teenagery tunnel. She's a cool kid. She's smarter than she knows and she has a whole universe locked inside waiting to be let loose onto the world. She doesn't cave in, she wears her heart on her sleeve and she isn't the easiest kid to get to know. She shows only so much of herself most of the time. I like that about her. I like that she is strong-willed and stubborn as a mule. She sticks to her convictions and will battle to the death for them.

14. My girl is 14. How cool is that?