这个日子在我们的日历上用红墨水圈了快三年了:8月22日，2015. Three years of driving carpool to Hebrew school on Wednesday afternoons. Three years of helping my daughter carve out time for Hebrew practice in between studying for tests,中提琴课，舞蹈课,网球，还有缝纫营。
然后是计划订购的请柬，预订酒店客房，选择菜单,finding a photographer. Would we have a green screen or photo booth? What were the merits of an afternoon luncheon versus an evening party? Before we knew it,我们的女儿犹太女孩was just a few months away. The day she was to "become a woman" was finally here!
I remember my own bat mitzvah as being one of the best days of my life. I remember feeling beautiful as I dressed in my purple silk dress with big ‘80s shoulder pads and polka dots,我脸上的头发成了一个烫发的光晕。我记得我被一家人团团围住，他们是从外地来的，尽管四月的暴风雪出乎意料地让我站在bimah我记得前一天，在学校，feeling both flattered and embarrassed that my friends had hired a singing telegram to come perform for me in the cafeteria. I felt special. I felt mature. I had opened the door and stepped over the threshold. One minute I was a girl,接着我变成了一个女人。
近30年后，I was driving my own daughter to a meeting with our rabbis. She sat beside me talking about the test she had taken that day in school and the plans she and her friends had made to see the next "饥饿游戏“电影。我们在车里尽了最大的努力”追赶“。我盼望着来往我们会堂的车辆。
当我听到她说她真的成长为一个有着自己对未来的希望和梦想的年轻女人时，我感到很震惊，她自己的驾驶野心，她自己的兴趣和不喜欢。她想成为下一个”天桥骄子" star and attend design school when she graduated. Her favorite thing to do was shop at the mall with her friends. She spent forever styling her hair in front of her mirror and picking out the perfect outfit. She had even confessed to her first boy crush that year.
But there were still the moments that she'd let me cuddle her like I did when she was a toddler. Some mornings when she came downstairs,沉睡在她的眼中，当我们对着收音机唱歌的时候，我会看到一个小女孩坐在那儿看着我做炒鸡蛋的倒影。那是一个不是成年人的孩子发出的带有感染力的咯咯笑。她仍然喜欢玩厨房或和她一起玩。美国女孩洋娃娃with her younger sister. She still enjoyed hopscotch and hula hoops. There were still traces of that younger self that,虽然短暂,像冬天的一朵罕见的花。
她的成年礼终于到了，我不知道谁更紧张，her or me? When she stepped up to thebimah,我被一阵情绪激动弄得措手不及。she was suddenly composed and smiled out to the crowd of nearly two-hundred friends and family. Despite being so soft-spoken,当她张开嘴的时候，她的声音带着悦耳的旋律，rhythmic rise and fall. Sunlight from the high stained glass windows glinted off the crystal charm she wore around her neck and I was captivated. I was proud.
This moment was one of those special moments when I caught a glimpse of the future woman my daughter was to become. What she accomplished that day,接受她在犹太教信仰中的角色，阅读Torah，was no small feat. I knew she still had years to go before truly becoming an adult,但她肯定是在走向女性的道路上。
Gone were the days when she wanted to hold my hand in the grocery store. Gone was the innocent little girl that cried when she realized her fairy wings couldn't really make her fly. But later,当她被抬到高高的椅子上时，她咯咯地笑起来，带着孩子般的放纵和快乐。
看着她，I realized there was no magic threshold that determines when childhood is over and adulthood begins. It happens in small steps. And I was determined to enjoy and appreciate every minute of that miraculous transition.
阅读更多：
为什么这个病毒式的Facebo苹果beplayok帖子打破了关于单身妈妈的有害神话？
