She's Such a Big Girl Now!!!!!!

Eighteen years ago today my beautiful daughter Eva Snow Asplund was born. I have a few snapshots in my head of the night/day/night it took to bring her out (I was in labor for a protracted forty hours): 3 am at the corner supermarket on 4th Ave. and Geary in SF--I walked the aisles to try to keep the labor going. I wasn't experienced enough at giving birth to know I should have tried to rest instead of wearing myself out. Sitting in the tub in our outer Richmond district railroad flat singing and timing contractions on a hot pink plastic watch I bought just for that purpose. And then (many, many, many hours later), she's born, I'm out of it, and Christian follows her around shading her eyes from the bright lights, as he had read somewhere that bright lights would be traumatic for a new baby. He questioned every move the docs and nurses made, and protected her until I got her and could hold her.

She was then, as she is now, a great beauty, an intriguing femme fatale in the making, and Christian and I were endlessly fascinated by her every move and facial expression. She was an early fan of Hendrix, and an early sitter, walker, teether, crawler and pianist. My main recollection of her as an infant is of holding her in an upright position--she hated to not be able to see everything and could hold her head up from day one--she was always in a perfect posture looking over my shoulder. She has always been beyond her years. As a child, all of her teachers adored her. Her kindergarten teacher even teared up at Eva's conference and said, "If I had a daughter, I would want her to be just like Eva." Though she is so very gifted, she is humble about her gifts and embarrassed about attention she gets for them--she refuses to take credit for her accomplishments, so I sometimes have to do it for her (like right now.) As a daughter, she has been a fun, interesting, and very helpful companion. I rely heavily on her perspective about life, her siblings, politics, human nature, etc. As a sister, she has been a role model, a tutor, and a caretaker with a heavy burden of responsibility. Everyone who knows me knows that I am incredibly proud of her, and can't help bragging about her. She is my greatest accomplishment and joy in this life (along with her siblings, of course). I miss her more than I can say, and I'm sad I can't be with her today.

Happy Eighteenth Birthday, Eva!!!!!!