Obsessively in Love

...with my daughter.  Don't know how it happened; she's just crept up on me.   Is this a typical mommy response when your daughter is about to turn eighteen?  Or is it something that hits all of us when we realize someone around us is really our teacher?

It's hard to be objective.  Teenagers carry such passion, such rage, such insight.  When I'm lucky, she'll tell me she loves me, bestow a kiss on my cheek.  Lately, the best gift she can give is a flash of her luminous smile.

(Here she is as a semi-finalist for the National Merit Scholar award.  The top picture is of her, on the left, and her best friend, Rebecca, at the first book signing for Bear Speaks.)