One score minus thirteen years ago

I gave birth to Sally. That kind of says it all. If you’re a mother or a daughter or have a mother or a daughter, you can probably imagine how I feel. I knew I would have a daughter first (I am a first daughter myself) and I had her name picked out before I picked out her father.

Sally is smart and sometimes shy; sensitive and sometimes silly. She loves to dance and actually has talent. She is, unfortunately, as talented at singing as her parents are, but she also inherited our love of reading. She can now block out the world in favor of a book with the best of them.

Don’t worry, we haven’t tried to discourage any of her emerging talents yet–but we would, if necessary, before she could make a fool of herself in an American Idol audition. What are parents for?

Sally gets obsessive about her homework like I used to, and she’s athletic like Dick used to be (hehe, Dick is still athletic, of course). And she’s kind, nurturing, loving to her sisters. She’s definitely a better big sister than I was. Like most children, she’s quick to forgive and to show affection.

I find that when I get mad at Sally it’s because she’s suddenly acting like a normal 7 year-old, where I had gotten used to a pretty helpful little-big girl.

Notice the purple velveteen bunny in both the baby picture and the 6 1/2-year old picture from this summer.

We found this car seat on the curb in The Bronx — New York has a great system of recycling; just leave your stuff on the street (next to, but not in, the garbage), and chances are, someone else will need it. I had to draw the line, though, when homeless people were picking up aluminum cans that had blown into the little front yard of our Archie Bunker house.

Sally was a healthy 9 lb 3 oz at birth.

I think I have about 700 pictures of Dick and the kids sleeping.

Dick was home with Sally while I worked in the good old days, and he liked to tease her. I think you’ll see that Sally looks a lot like Spot, or Spot like Sally.

See Sally with Julia Stiles — Dick taught her freshman writing course, and I was crass enough to ambush her after a student-teacher conference. Wanted my Sally to have at least one picture with a celebrity, eh.

See Sally ride the Subway in NYC.

And here are some pictures from our swim party on Saturday:

Unfortunately, the birthday girl isn’t featured very prominently in these pictures: she was too busy going down the slide and staying as far away from mom as possible. At least it seemed that way at times.