Twenty-One

October 31, 2010: 21-year-old Sarah finally celebrates her birthday with her family.

On Wednesday, October 27, my firstborn became a real adult.  Not a fake "I'm-still-a-teenager-but-the-law-says-I'm-an-adult-because-I-turned-eighteen" adult (I'm sorry, but being able to vote and buy cigarettes doesn't mean you've achieved adulthood).

No, my sweet Sarah has reached the old-fashioned legal age of twenty-one, and I'm still having a hard time wrapping my brain around that fact.  I'm sure she was still a cuddly armful just a couple of years ago!

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October 8, 1990: 11-month-old Sarah at Big Lake with her mom (me!)

Now Sarah is a working girl and college student.  She's been a cashier at WalMart for almost 3 months now, and she has completed all but two of her required classes at Northland Pioneer College before transferring to Mesa Community College next summer to attend the veterinarian technician program there.  She's also an excellent nanny, pet-sitter, and violinist in White Mountain Symphony Orchestra.

As far as adults go, Sarah has a whole lot of living left to do and tons of life still to experience, but she is on her way!

Why am I just now writing about her birthday, which happened 4 whole days ago? First of all, it seems fitting to record her birthday on Halloween since she and I spent her first Halloween in the hospital.  To read more about the reasons for our extended hospital stay after Sarah's birth, go here:  Sarah's Start

Tulips from Tahna!  Every day they open wide and every night they close up tight like this.  Gorgeous!

Secondly, we didn't get to celebrate her birthday until tonight because she's been busy all week.  She has worked from 2:00 to 11:00 p.m. almost every night this past week, including on her birthday.  She wasn't scheduled to work on Thursday, but that's her night for symphony rehearsals and she was off to the Snowflake campus.  Besides all that, she's been staying at her grandpa's house since Wednesday night to dog-sit again, so we haven't seen her much.

However, her good friends Emmi and Tahna saw to it that she was treated right during the week.  On Thursday morning Tahna brought Sarah a beautiful bouquet of tulips and took her out to breakfast at Darbi's.  After her symphony rehearsal, Emmi and Tahna got together and gave Sarah both a manicure and a pedicure, which she loved!

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A beautiful gift from family friend Gwen.  Gwen chose this doll for the dark curls that are so like Sarah's!

And so tonight was our night to remember the day Sarah came into my world and brightened my life. 

We celebrated with chocolate cake and Sarah's favorite mint-and-chip ice cream.  We admired her beautiful new doll that our friend Gwen brought to her at church today.  Ed gave Sarah a romantic chick-flick DVD called Dear John, and I promised to take her to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 when it comes to theaters on November 19th.  We'll do a girls' night out!

My little girl is a woman now.  But she'll always be my baby.