Non-Random Ten

"Happy Birthday Kid Z" Edition

I dedicate this week's Ten list to my older daughter's ninth birthday. Z had a dance party, so in lieu of standard-issue goodie bag plastic junk, she and I collaborated on burning a couple of CDs of her favorite music. Here are her favs of favs:

1. "Sweet Surrender" by Sarah McLachlan
2. "Maps" by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
3. "Come On Come On" by Smash Mouth
4. "White Chocolate Space Egg" by Liz Phair
5. "Mine's Not a High Horse" by The Shins
6. "It's Oh So Quiet" by Bjork
7. "Sunny Came Home" by Shawn Colvin
8. "Do You Realize??" by The Flaming Lips
9. "Letting Go" by Suzy Bogguss
10. "In the Highways" by The Peasall Sisters

It's popular when reflecting on a milestone like this to say "it seems like only yesterday." Not for me. Kid Z's birth seems like a lifetime ago. I can barely remember life without her. She kicked through doors to rooms of emotion I couldn't have imagined entering, much less inhabiting. I held her in my arms, looked into eyes baffled by their first encounter with light, watched her tougue work her lower lip and leaned a new definition of love.

What does seem like yesterday is Z as a silly little girl. I look now at a self-possessed little lady on the cusp of adolescence and wonder where she came from. And where she's going. Ah, there's the rub.

Z truly combines the best of my wife (intelligence, industry, musicality, empathy) and me (green eyes, good hair.) And she possesses traits -- artistic ability and neatness -- that are clearly her own.

Happy Birthday, Darlin'.