We’re on the brink. I know, I know — we’ve already into the teen years in a lot of ways. She has teen interests (some, not all), a nearly-teen body, a teen attitude at times. She has no more toys in her room. The birthday presents she wants to buy when she goes to parties come from Bed and Body Works and similar shops. She has a whole slew of favorite music, which I find myself thinking about in a way that my parents probably thought about my music. But her age is still not appended with “teen.”

For one more year.

Today we had the annual pre-Christmas Polish gathering, which always includes a nativity play (jasełka) put on by the children of the Polish community. The Girl has been participating in this since she was four, making this the eighth year she’s done it.

Many of the children who used to participate are no longer children. They were young teens when they first did it, and now they’re in college, one in med school. They gather together during these performances and sit at a table, one of the islands of English in a largely Polish crowd. The other island — the young children who are today’s stars.

So to watch L perform on her birthday when sitting nearby are yesterday’s children who are now young adults is a jarring experience in some ways. “They grow up so quickly,” we all say, but we never really see it because their changes occur daily, and that daily exposure blurs the changes. But every now and then…

When I first arrived, I saw a young lady walking out of a door that I didn’t recognize immediately. Tall, graceful, with tastefully done makeup and a flawless face — it took me half a second to realize that it was my own daughter.

To see one’s own daughter, for the briefest of moments, as a stranger is to be, for the briefest of moments, a time traveler: I would not have immediately recognized twelve-year-old L were she to walk through the door eight years ago; were thirty-year-old L to walk through the door now, I might not realize it for a moment.

That is what we mean when we say “They grow up so fast.” They cease being the little girls and boys we’re comfortable with before we’re ready for it, before we even realize it’s happened.

Previous Years’ Birthday Posts

2009: Three
2011: Big Sister’s Birthday
2012: Six and Jasielka
2013: Birthday Party
2014: 8
2015: Nine
2016: Ten
2017: Eleven