Nine years ago today, I was inducted into the secret life of motherhood. My baby girl, queen of our castle, and boss of her brothers came silently into the world at 1:41 PM on 12-26-99. I had been laboring since midnight the night before and was unpleasantly surprised at how painful the whole process was. When it was time to push, I vehemently denied wanting to participate and rather asked the midwife to hook up a chain and pull her on out. After all, I had done my part and was physically and emotionally exhausted.

I did end up pushing and after an hour, she was finally delivered; a silent, beautiful, purple little baby doll. She was not breathing and did not have a heartbeat. Hubby was videotaping the whole process, unknowing that our little girl was on the verge of something terrible. The nurses feverishly revived her as the rest of us were oblivous to what was going on. You can actually see her start to pink up in the video and her first kitten-like cry makes me bawl everytime I watch it. A few minutes of resuscitation brought us a screaming little girl and she hasn't shut up since.

Happy birthday Taterbug, Shalimar Keisha, Ms. Fashionista, Tea, Butthead, T-Bug, Bubba and whatever other name fits her at the time. We love you!