In Which My Baby Girl Becomes A Woman Overnight

Tomorrow, my 16 year old daughter has her first ever job interview.  As her mother, when she got the call for the interview, my reaction was twofold.  First, "Yaaay!"  and then "Waaaah!"  It is the same reaction I had when she turned 16, when she started driving, when she got her first period, when she started walking, when she gave up her sippy cup....  Oh my goodness, people told me it went by fast, but I had no idea till it happened to me!
I was 25 when I had her, and I had wanted a baby for SO long, which seems funny, looking back, because now 25 seems kinda young to me to be having children.  Brenna herself says "25 is gonna be my baby-making age."  She's got so much of her life planned out in her optimistic little head, and I hope it turns out the way she wants it to. 
She came out of me with sass and spunk, and did everything too early.  She smiled before the books and Dr. said she should be able to smile, and she talked (oh man, did she talk!) in complex sentences way, waaaay early.  When she was about Aila and Weston's age (close to a year) she knew the names of all our friends and acquaintances.  When she was about one and a half, she informed our neighbor over the backyard fence that she had had a great day with Mommy, because "We found shoes on clearance, half off, and Mommy loves half off!" 
Her grin always included her crinkling up her nose in a very mischievous looking sort-of way.  No one could ever be sweeter than her when she was sweet, and no one could ever be as rotten when she was rotten, which was often.  She exhausted me and amused me.  She was a pain in my butt, and my best friend. 
I blinked and she was starting school, and cracking up her teachers, and making new friends.  Her  kindergarden teacher told me she intentionally sat her next to an extremely shy, repressed little boy, who was mute because of severe neglect he had suffered at home.  Brenna taught him to talk. 
When the kids won awards each month for displaying certain qualities, Brenna won for "uniqueness."  I laughed my butt off about it, and called her "freak of the month!" 
Next thing I know, she's in middle school, then high school.... and she went from being the one I needed help with to the one helping me with her little brothers and sister.  She's a junior in high school now, about to be inducted in the National Honor Society.  And she's gonna interview for a job tomorrow.  And if she gets that job, she'll just be one step closer to leaving me one day.  It has gone by WAY too fast.  I'm so glad I have Dalton and the twins to keep me busy with kids, cuz otherwise the thought of the empty-nest thing coming up in a few years would just suffocate me. 
My parents laughed when her personality began to show and she was so much like I had been, because they had put that curse on me that most parents do, "I hope one day you have a daughter and she's JUST LIKE YOU, and then you'll know how we feel!"  Well, their curse came true, and it's been hard, and it's been wonderful, and I DO have a better idea of how my parents felt, raising me. 
So now, I curse my daughter, "I hope one day you have a daughter and she's JUST LIKE YOU!"  Only, I don't mean it as a curse to Brenna, I mean it as a blessing to me!  Because when she's old enough to have children, I will miss my firstborn baby girl so much, and the best thing I could hope for is that she has me a grandchild one day, who is just like her.