The oohs and ahhs were flying the other day as I went through old photos of my now 17-year-old daughter. I was looking for the perfect one – cute, a little embarrassing, but not too much. Her school has a tradition of parents submitting a baby or toddler photo and a few words of congratulations to be included in her senior yearbook.
This threw me into the thick of nostalgia, scrolling through the archive of her childhood. For a moment, in my head, I’m back with her when problems were simple and the joy of fatherhood was innocent and pure.
She was fun and those were great years. I found pictures of her with the painted sculptures of the Cow Parade when we ran around town to find them. There she is at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden one spring when the Forsythia was blooming its welcoming yellow. There are pictures of birthday parties and Halloween costumes, like the year she was a cat with long black whiskers. Here she is with pumpkins and hay. Here with hair tied up into wild pigtails. Here with sunglasses in a very pink outfit. Here banging a drum. Here playing in the snow.
Coincidentally, I ran into her first-grade teacher at the grocery store. We reminisced a few minutes and then she asked about my daughter, trying to get a feel for how she had grown and changed over the years.
I went looking at those old pictures again, trying to think not just about the wonderful memories I cherish of the little girl she was, but the young woman she has become over all this time. My daughter is shy, for example, but she’s gone from the toddler who would hide behind me, clinging to my legs whenever she was introduced to a new adult into a young woman who manages college interviews and dinners with all kinds of new people.
At home, she would rather I deal with finding missing shoes or clothes, but I know she handled her laundry at camp, can make her bed and — when she puts her mind to it — can manage pretty well for herself.
There’s a picture of her as a toddler playing in a cheerleader outfit. Now I have pictures of her in varsity volleyball and softball uniforms. There’s a photo of her playing at the sink, randomly pouring water into and out of various containers. Now she does experiments in chemistry and cooks delicious and complicated things in the kitchen. There’s one of her snacking at her toddler table in a child’s chair. Now she goes out to real restaurants, or sits with friends at our kitchen table for a meal.
My fond memories of my daughter at a younger age are precious to me, but I can get caught up in the past and not see her as she is today. She was a great toddler but she is a complicated, challenging, wonderful teenager who I enjoy and love just as much, even if I miss those wild pigtails.
