Happy Birthday Alexa

13 years ago tonight I sat holding the tiniest baby I'd ever seen...with the biggest nose.lol Alexa was born 5 lbs and 6 ounces...she was such a little peanut. We had to buy preemie clothes for her and she swam in the diapers. I remember when she was a few months old remarking to my Mom to watch Alexa as I held her. Her eyes followed Andrea around to see what was happening. You could tell even then she was a thinker. We knew we were in trouble early on with her when she successfully argued with her father when he reminded her that we don't eat chocolate for breakfast and she responded with, "You let us eat coco-puffs". Nick gave her the chocolate. When I wasn't looking she would mix toothpaste and shampoo together in the bathroom. "I wanted to see what would happen." Mom's going to get mad, that's what's going to happen. Of course, it wasn't her brightest moment when she stuck peas up her nose and spent the night in the ER while the docs fished it out....twice. Or mine when I had to call poison control for the 4th time because she drank the bottle of infant tylenol I'd left out for Jess's teething, again. And just as the woman on the phone at poison control reassured me, she survived. She always craved attention, She developed her middle child syndrom early. I remember taking her at the age of 4 to see Princess Diaries in the theater and the part where Mia is lamenting about how she isn't enough of a geek let's stick a tiarra on top of it. Alexa stood up on her seat and whispered in my ear, "If I just found out I was a princess, I would *not* be complaining" No, not my Alexa, not at all . Alexa is planning on taking over the world, fair warning to everyone. She knows how to turn things to her advantage, when she was 3 she went trick or treating with her siblings...went to the same houses, and ended up with twice as much candy. She would tell people who tried to hand out reese's peanut butter cups that she was allergic and they'd scoop up handfuls of other candy and throw it in her pail. She has plans to be Secretary of State and who knows what after that. Sometime's I think she has always been an old soul and other times she acts very much her age...and younger. I don't know why but this birthday seems to be a hard one for me. It was for Andrea and is for Alexa too. They aren't little girls anymore. Not quite women either...and it's that nether world of teen hood we have to navigate together. I know she'll make it through the other side...I'm not certain I will. Teenagers seem to test my patience in ways I never imagined. I'm just glad I get to go along for the ride to see where she ends up.