22 - Revisited three days later in an attempt to add some pictures that went on all kooky so I tried to delete them but deleted the whole post by

mistake so I had to try to recreate the post. (Did you know there is a limit to the number of characters you can put in a title?)

Dateline February 2.

To all you new mommies and daddies out there who are posting your babies' pictures, and to everyone else who knows her, I just want to announce that my baby turned 22 today. Not 22 weeks. Not 22 months. But 22 years! And she still likes to sit on my lap.

If it weren't for her, I'd be baby hungry, too.

She had a rocky start. The docs said that all she had was a heartbeat, so the stork team was standing by when she made her entrance into the world. She had to stay at the hospital for a whole week before we could bring her home, but she's never been back. And now she wants to be a nurse.

She makes me laugh.

She calls me all the time just to check up on me.

She likes to shop. Sometimes she calls me to ask if I want to give her purchases to her for her birthday. Or Christmas. Or Tuesday.

She has many, many friends whom she treats like members of our family. I know because it's usually just family members who walk into their parents' bedroom late at night, right? Well, sometimes I'd wake up and there would be my baby and her high school friends looking down at me. In my PJ's. Right there in my bed. Snoring, no doubt. And probably with drool on my face. But it's all okay now because they're in college and they don't do that any more.

She still treats them like members of the family.

Like one time when she was on a trip to CA, she left her Jeep in our garage. I was home alone. I heard our garage door open, then I heard her Jeep start up. The next thing I heard was the garage door closing again. It's a mystery, I thought to myself. So this time I called her. The Jeep came right back. I insisted that she insist. It was one of those family members I hadn't given birth to.

Last October when the Professor and I took her to St. George with us, she let her roommate, a.k.a., Another Person to Whom I Did Not Give Birth, borrow her car for the weekend. It wasn't a very bad accident. But there were repairs required. On our insurance.

She is sooooo much fun to know. And to be around.

She's a wonderful daughter and I love her.

Happy Birthday, Manda Suzi! And many more.