It started out like any other weekend. My daughter, Tiffany, was with friends and I grumbled out loud, inching her bedroom door open, pushing against the mountain of clothes spilling out from her laundry basket, some still folded from last week's wash day. I worked my way around the obstacle course of makeup, shoes, exercise ball, beach ball, a broken umbrella and miscellaneous other items she'd used the previous week for a modeling session for a local photographer. I reminisced over the shots: some were fun and playful, others were serious and solemn. In one set, she looked like a porcelain doll dressed in antique black velvet; in another, dressed in white and barefoot -- she looked like an angel -- my angel, my baby.

At 18, she had just graduated from high school with high honors. An 8-by-10 picture hung on her wall of her wearing her royal blue graduation cap and gold tassel -- blue and gold -- the color of her eyes and long blonde hair.

I thought how could someone so pretty be so messy? Hadn't I done my job as a mother to teach her that neatness and cleanliness matters? I groaned looking at her unmade bed, more clothes, one lone shoe and an indefinable something in a bowl that was covered with green fuzz. "Ugh, child!" I exclaimed out loud. "Just wait until you have a place of your own!"

We'd been over this subject all through her senior year, but somehow between her weekend job, her senior project, the lead in the senior play, and a new boyfriend, my pleading and begging fell on deaf ears. I knew I was fighting a losing battle, so I gave up.

One day she would move into a place of her own and I figured it would be kind of fun to just sit back and watch her struggle through the hum‑drum of housework and laundry. Yes, I had it all pictured in my mind -- two years at community college, then on to a university for her B.A., before moving out to be on her own. Then I would sit back and watch the fun. "Mom, can I wash my white fuzzy sweater with my bath mats?" Oh yeah! I couldn't wait. I would have the house to myself and do all the things I'd dreamed of doing once my baby girl left home.

Wrong! A few weeks later, she dropped the bomb. It's the bomb every mother spends at least 18 years preparing for, praying for, but isn't ever really ready to hear. She and a friend found this absolutely awesome apartment, signed the lease, and were moving in Sunday.

My throat constricted, my brain whirled, and my stomach threatened to leave town. "S‑Sunday? You‑you mean this Sunday?" I was more prepared to have one of my still functioning body parts removed. "But  . . .  but  . . . " All rational thought was gone. I was gone. I stared in disbelief at my little girl, my baby, the product of my body standing there, big blue eyes shining with excitement, grinning proudly from ear to ear.

Time seemed to rush backward, back to the day she was delivered. I was staring incredulously down at this tiny infant with a halo of fuzzy white hair. I could hear myself arguing groggily with the nurse after my C‑section. "Okay, another girl, but there's been a mistake ─ I don't give birth to blondes . . ."