Sixteen Going On Seventeen

Seventeen years ago this day was a Sunday. I remember, not because I am one of those savants who can recall every detail of their lives, but this day was so important to me I remember it well. For seventeen years ago, on this day, was the last day Russ and I were just a couple. I was two weeks overdue with our baby and was going to the hospital at six the next morning to have Carter.
Carter’s birth was very eventful. Her heart rate went down three times which prompted the doctor to call for an emergency c-section. I was instructed to get on my hands and knees on the skinny hospital bed while my gown, that opened in the back hung off me and lay on the bed under me. Nurses, who were unconcerned with my naked body, furiously rolled the bed through the halls to the operating room were I rolled off one bed onto the operating table. In five minutes Carter was born, with no apparent heart problem. It set me up for years of accident and injuries that were scary at first, but not that bad in the end from my only child.
So tonight, on the eve of her seventeenth birthday, Carter is out to dinner with a couple of friends. So grown up to want to just go out to dinner. Russ is in Australia and I am home with Shay Shay prepping the cake for the post-dinner celebration. Seventeen seems so old. I guess I can blame the Sound of Music for making me feel like being sixteen going on seventeen is a big deal. No, it’s not eighteen or twenty-one or any of the big legal ages, but seventeen is the only age that has a magazine named after it. 
As I flip through Carter’s baby book and relive that first year, it feels like yesterday. Since Carter ended up being an only child I tried to appreciate all the stages. I never minded diapers, or teething, or learning to ride a bike. I could have done without some adolescent time, but really it was fairly short lived. Now her time at home is short. Before we know it she will be grown. Always my baby, no matter how old. Happy Birthday Carter! You changed our lives for the better.