How is this possible?

     I have been in complete denial for 2 months now.  And I realized it's because I'm grieving.  You know how there are 5 stages of grief?  And they can all come in a different order.  I have accepted the fact that I'm "grieving" over the loss of my daughter's "childhood," so I guess that's at least a good step.  But I still feel like I'm stuck in the denial stage.  It isn't possible that my little girl has turned 12, because I swear it was just yesterday that she looked like this:   

     This precious little girl made me a mother.  She took all the selfishness out of me, and made me focus outside of myself for the first time in my life.  She has definitely tested my limits a few times over the last 12 years, and most of the time I feel extremely inadequate to be responsible for raising her and teaching her the proper way to live.  But there have been moments when I have been overcome with an overwhelming sense of love for her.  Like right after she was born and the doctor handed her to me to hold for the first time.  Words cannot even describe the love I felt for her the very first time I saw her and held her in my arms. 
     Our Sunday School lesson a few weeks ago was about 3 Nephi Chapter 17, where Christ visits the Nephites and blesses the little children.  We were discussing the fact that Jesus wept because his joy was full.  This chapter in the Book of Mormon took on a whole new meaning for me, because I immediately thought of the birth of my first child, and how I wept because my joy was so full.  Jesus knew those little children, just as he knows each of us, and just as we know our own children.  And that chapter is so sacred that many things could not even be written.  It was interesting that the main thing I was focused on during the whole lesson was my oldest child.  The one with the sweet spirit and the strong testimony, despite her mother's inadequacies.  
     Turning 12 is a pretty big deal for a Latter-day Saint girl.  She has now graduated from Primary, and attends Young Women instead.  She goes to Mutual every Wednesday night, and this past Friday, she went on a trip with the youth in the ward to the open house of the newly renovated Boise Temple.  I'm still wondering when this whirlwind of my daughter becoming a woman is going to slow down and come into focus in my brain.  Because like I said, I am in denial.  So it has taken me two months to post a birthday picture, but here is my first step in accepting reality:

      Happy (very belated) Birthday to the most beautiful Young Woman in the world!  Your mother loves you more than you will ever be able to comprehend; until, of course, you become a mother yourself.