Today is Kylee's 17th birthday. It seems so strange to have someone who was the main focus of your life 17 years ago not here to celebrate that wonderous day. I miss her. I want to hug her and tell her how much I love her. And then this happened:

Kylee and I were IMing each other when she says," Mom I want to have a serious discussion with you."

Of course with words like this coming from you 17 yo's typewriter your mind begins to fly wildly. She pregnant...she was hurt...she's in love...she never wants to come home...and a host of other absurdities crammed into the old gray matter.

And then she types, "I just wanted you to know that when I am 18 and if you have saved a little money, if anything were to happen to you and Dad I want to take the kids."

And I started bawling. Not because her offer is necessarily a possibility but because she would offer knowing all the challenges that our special needs children face in the years to come. And because I have secretly wondered at times if the adoption of our younger children had perhaps made Kylee feel left out or at the bottom of the pile. That somehow her needs became secondary to theirs.

But maybe I was bawling because that is the minute that I realized my daughter had matured and grown up. That was the moment I realized that she was beginning to think like an adult, love like a parent and grow into a person whose concern about others that she loves outweighs her immediate concern about herself.

And so on the day I so desperately wished I could hug my girl and give her a gift, she turned the tables on me and gave me the best present ever. A one sentence treasure that came from her heart. And sometimes it just doesn't get any better than that!