Mandy’s fourteenth birthday’s come and gone. For breakfast, she got homemade waffles with strawberry syrup and whipped cream. Her presents were practical this year – some clothes and shoes and a new bag for school.
Fourteen years into this, I have to say she’s a good kid for the most part – a little disorganized, a little lazy, a little thoughtless. But when we think about the other teenagers I see, with their skin-tight shirts and their sneery attitudes and their noses in their text-phones, we’re glad we have her. She’s smart and funny and wise and cheerful.
Happy birthday, Mandy. Let’s make this next year a good one, too.
