Sweet Sixteen and Mortified

My oldest daughter turned 16 on Sunday.

When I told others this fact I was often greeted with a gasp and then, "How do you feel about that?!"  I feel fine about it.  Honestly, I stayed in what-do-I-need-to-accomplish mode.  I thought about the birthday cake I would bake from scratch buy from Costco, birthday shopping and carrying out the second part of fulfilling my destiny.  While others are floundering with the doctrinal questions of purpose of life, I have it all figured out.  My first purpose is to give four children birth.  Done.  The second purpose is to mortify them all the days of my earthly existence.  This has brought me a great deal of glee.

The reason I blog.

I've carefully considered the pros and cons of having another driver in the house.  Not that we have an extra car but how nice it will be to send her to pick up a sibling from school when I'm not home or up the street to pick up sour cream from the store.  Since she's still in training, however, I am constantly on call. 

Ironically, it was Sunday morning, as I was reaching for my hypertension medication that I realized she was 16 and old enough to date.  I dropped my pills and ran to my husband in a panic.

"Do you realize she's old enough to date?!"  Yes, he had already considered this and was looking at the Cabella's ad in the Sunday paper. 

Shotguns.

Later in the week I was at a Young Women activity at the church with my daughter.  The theme focused on our heritage.  How do we connect to our ancestors?  Each mother took a turn to tell about her grandmother who taught her how to quilt or sew or cook and they held up a beautiful speciman.  The talent oozed out of their pores.  Tatting, hand quilting, knitting of intricate sweaters and dresses and I knew I was in the company of domestic goddesses.  It would have been intimidating had I not been giddy for my turn to share my heritage. 

I brought a binder with photos, genealogy charts, and typed stories.  I was second to last and knew I could only share a portion of what characteristics my ancestors had passed onto me.  I started with my grandmother's great grandmother, Henrietta, whose husband died shortly before she left Nauvoo with two young boys for the Salt Lake Valley.  She travelled without a husband in the harsh elements. 

Henrietta's surviving son, my ancestor,  lost one arm during his teenage years.  He learned Shoshone and became a pony express rider.  He lost one of his legs in a logging accident and was never quite right after he recovered.   My great, great, great, great grandfather consecutively married three Mary's.  The first Mary appeared to a very distant cousin of mine in Australia in 1978 causing a domino effect that resulted in his wife being my friend on facebook.  Oh, and she's his second cousin.  Another distant grandmother committed suicide in an insane asylum.

Although these snippets seem random, there is a common thread.  My ancestors, bless their hearts, are lunatics. 

Of course, there's always a chance that it will or has skipped a generation which means my grandchildren might have a prayer.

Then again, who wants to date the daughter of a lunatic? 

Want to date my daughter?  Bring it on.