My First Child...

As tormented as I was about my life and what to do next, my "biological clock" was ticking away, so I was told by all of the friends around us that already had children. My logic, as much as it could be called logic, was telling me that things were pretty much as good as they were going to get and the outbursts that were bestowed upon me no longer effected me emotionally, as I had learned to let them bounce off of my heart and memory...

In April, my first baby girl was born. From that moment on, my priorities and my life changed once again. I protected her with all that I had and immediately began preparing her to become and independent little being. Still tucked down inside my heart and the back of my mind, I could not completely diminish the thought that someday Charlie would harm me again. I wanted my child to be ready if anything was to ever happen to me and be able to do things by herself.

At the age of two, she was able to sing her ABCs and speak in complete sentences. She was with me everywhere I went... in the yard, in the house, my constant shadow. She absorbed everything that I had to offer her and then some. She could dress herself and brush her teeth with ease. Sometimes her tiny clothes were on backwards and didn't match that well, but she could get dressed. She learned to brush her long beautiful hair and could pull a chair to the cabinets and counters, under my watchful eyes, to get herself a snack. By the time she went to kindergarten, she was well advanced and very bored in school. She enjoyed helping her peers reach and attain the goals she had met long ago. As she grew older, she continued her successes and habits that she learned at a very young age...