Sweet 16

Whenever someone asks me about my daughters, I inevitably get the same response:

"Wow, that is quite the age gap!"

Um, yeah. I realize that.

My girls are 15 years apart. When we've been out and Erika is carrying Madeline, people often think she is her baby. She's usually not too thrilled about this, either. Last fall when we were school shopping, Erika brought Maddy with her into a shoe store while I was paying for something in a nearby shop in the mall. The sales clerk asked Erika if she could help her find shoes for her daughter. Erika quickly informed her that she's her little sister and no, she was shopping for shoes for herself. I can just picture the look of horror on her face. When I walked into the store she quickly handed Maddy off to me so she could find shoes in her size.

On Monday both my girls will be Sweet 16.

Madeline turns 16 months tomorrow and Erika is 16 years. I'm not sure if their ages sort of match up like this again in their lives but to me, it's worth commemorating. I've having my husband take some nice photos of them together. I'll post them here if I can. Sometimes Erika's hard to pin down. She's playing Mrs. Darling in our community theater's production of "Peter Pan," and she's very active in speech, in addition to taking college and online courses at her high school. She's rarely home and when she is, she's doing homework before she goes to bed.

Madeline adores her big sis and always cries when Erika leaves for school or, like tonight, when she's watching a movie with her boyfriend downstairs. Ugh.

A couple friends of mine recently asked me how I deal with the whole dating scene with my teen daughter, since their daughters are preteens now and really, like I told them, I have no good advice on that. I hate it. It drives me crazy knowing that they're making out in my basement.

But she's a high school junior and in 1-1/2 years she'll be away at college. I've got to allow her to date, be with her friends and basically have to trust her. She's a good kid and actually, her boyfriend is a nice guy.

Fortunately  I have plenty of time to worry about Madeline making out with her boyfriend in our basement.

My girls' age difference wasn't planned but I think they may be spaced out perfectly. I had long forgotten how painful childbirth was when I had Maddy, and by the time Maddy's 16 (years, not months), I'll have forgotten how painful these teen years are. Shoot, I'll probably have Alzheimers by then I'll be so old. :-))

It's a win-win, really.