Daughters

I sat next to Bob Welch at the Eugene Library's Authors and Artists Night last week. Bob and his wife have two boys and now they also have two grandchildren, the younger of which is a girl.

"Girls are just so. . . .different. . . from boys," Bob said. He and his boys are all the sort who bond by playing football and tackling each other, so having a delicate little girl in the family has been a whole new thing. He has learned to be more gentle and cuddly with her.

I told him I am happy for his wife, who must have felt very overwhelmed with all the males around her all those years.

It got me to thinking how very blessed I am to have daughters. Three of them, enough for lots of variety and fun and endless fascinating turns in the plot. And it seems that with almost anything I enjoy, I have a daughter who shares my tastes--tea, fancy coffees, knitting, cool old movies, quirky humor.

I could also go into how sweet and nice they are, and how cute, and talented, but I would soon embarrass them. But I will say this--they are all good writers and will no doubt far outshine their mother before too much time passes.

Amy doesn't post often on her Xanga but when she does, it's a treat, like this essay about her car that made me laugh the whole way through. She sounded surprised. "I wasn't trying to be funny." Well, sometimes if you just tell it like it is, it's funnier.

Emily, as I told you, is writing a book about the last year. And she just reached another milestone in her recovery. I feel really bad about this, but it didn't even register what was happening and how important this was, and I was sitting right beside her. Sometimes you're too close to the situation to really notice things.

And Jenny has sign-in lock on her Xanga so I will cut and paste a paragraph that amused me.
"I hate it when I have a tickle in my nose. Like it feels like it's gonna sneeze, but it doesn't sneeze. If you ask me, it's very weird. I get it when I'm drinking pop."

And here's a poem Jenny wrote:

"I have a sister named Emily.
We argue all the time.
She has moved to Redmond.
And she didn't do any crime."

Well, most of the time my girls are sweet and nice.

And I am very fortunate to be their mom.