A Decade of Loving Her

For my daughter on her tenth birthday

Apr 29, 2026

If you gave me access to a laboratory where I could create the world’s best kid from scratch—a sweet grin here, a dash of charisma there—I still couldn’t come up with anyone better than my daughter Evelyn.

She is a miracle.

Not in the sense that it was difficult to conceive or birth her; we got lucky there. I just think she somehow fished all the best traits out of the haphazard gene pool she was offered.

Evie has her father’s sense of daring and adventure, his effortless athleticism and artistic ability, and his enviably full eyebrows, which I’ve sternly instructed her never to pluck.

She has my silliness and enthusiasm for life, my love of animals (especially dogs), and my deep sense of empathy.

Her razor-sharp wit and sarcasm come from both of us, thank you very much. So proud.

She gets her piercing eyes and social-butterfly nature from her grandma Greta, and her love of dance from her grandma Janet.

And then there’s a je ne sais quoi that’s all Evie’s own: her ability to light up every room, to draw people in with her smiling eyes, to transform anyplace she stands into a stage. She got 100 extra dashes of charisma.

I haven’t written much about my daughter or motherhood because I’m written so much about my mother and daughterhood. That’s a shame. Evie deserves all the words.

She’s the best person I’ve ever known; a walking, talking piece of my heart. I’ve never felt that more than I have the past few months.

I can’t sum up the past ten years of knowing and loving her in a single newsletter, but I can share some moments that stand out as I reflect on how she’s made my life immeasurably better in every way.

Evie was born at 3:50 am on Friday, April 29, 2016, and we brought her home from the hospital on Saturday evening—my mother’s birthday. I was bone-tired but don’t think I slept at all that night. All I remember is staring at Evie in the bassinet next to our bed, then creeping out in the wee hours to take her into the nursery with me.

I was wearing a black cotton tank top that had been stretched and mangled beyond usefulness by my ample bump over the past few months. I unswaddled my new little mole-rat, sat in the glider (beige, microfiber, Craiglist), and found one more use for the tank: Evie slid right into it to nuzzle against my bare chest and deflated belly.

I might’ve glided halfheartedly, just to try it out. Sitting was not so comfortable after pushing out a nine-pound baby, so I can’t imagine I wanted to add movement to the situation.

But with my daughter pressed to me, I was finally able to sleep. I remember alternating between sniffing her head, brushing my cheek against her downy fuzz (I wouldn’t call it hair until she was well over a year old), and drifting off as pale morning light began to seep through the blinds.

I didn’t have the faintest idea how to be a mother. I hadn’t read any of the books or taken classes beyond infant CPR.

But this? Her, me, together? This, I knew.

And from what I experienced while holding my mother as she drew her last breath, that might really be all there is to it.

Evie turned four on April 29, 2020, wearing a sequined purple dress and opening gifts in our driveway while her daycare friends looked on from the open windows of their parked cars.

The Covid-19 pandemic hit at the best possible time in her childhood: She fully experienced it, but does not remember it. Her daycare was closed from the beginning of March through the end of May, and reopened with everyone wearing masks on June 1. Our family’s quarantine felt like it lasted forever, but it was really just a blip in the grand scheme of things.

Of course I wouldn’t opt into the pandemic, given the choice, but it gave me—a working mom who went back to the office full-time when Evie was 12 weeks old—three beautiful spring months at home with her. Leaving my baby when everything in my heart and brain and breasts was telling me not to was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. This bonus time with her felt like a rare gift.

I still had to work remotely, but my memories are not of awkward Zoom meetings or the sting of isolation, but of midmorning breaks riding bikes or pulling Evie in her red wagon to the river about a mile away, where we’d hunt for the best rocks, try our hand at skipping them, and sometimes jump in if it was warm enough.

Any stress from the situation was balanced by the silly sweetness of spending all day, every day, with my girl. Despite how dark the larger world felt, in our little life, the sun was shining and everything was in bloom.

Each night, I snuggled Evie closer, thinking of all the parents who never made it home to their kids.

There were endless puzzles, stuffed-animal tea parties, living-room forts cobbled together with blankets and pillows and a colander for some reason. Trolls World Tour ran on a loop. Evie was self-sufficient enough to dress herself, rustle up a snack, and use the TV remote, so sometimes we’d look up from our laptops to discover her wearing a bathing suit, rain boots, and eight bows in her hair while open-mouth chewing Goldfish and slobbering crumbs all over the couch.

She’s always been a hoot and a half; quarantine only amplified her powers. The rules of life didn’t apply anymore, so the rules of parenting relaxed, too. Evie was free to be exactly her fabulous self.

It’s a bit of a shame this wild time didn’t imprint in her brain. As terrible as it is to say, our family had a blast. We kind of crushed the pandemic.

For Evie, the reality behind it is a bad dream someone else had.

I remember it all.

Last month, Evie and I wiggled in and out of shorts in an Old Navy dressing room on an unseasonably warm day. My hair felt like it was suffocating me. When I couldn’t find a hair tie in my purse, Evie pointed to the one she’d used to tie her baggy T-shirt tight in the back and said, “I’ll forfeit this one for you.”

I’ll forfeit. This one. For you.

My mind ran through her sentence over and over. She could have said, “I’ll give you mine,” or, “You can have this one.” When the hell did my daughter learn the word forfeit and become so comfortable using it that it slipped out like an egg yolk from its shell?

Maybe I shouldn’t have been stunned. Evie was deep into nine, nearly ten, and has always been a smart kid. But sometimes she says things that smack me in the face with this reminder: She knows things I didn’t teach her.

In my lizard brain, Evie will always be that helpless mole-rat burrowed under my tank top. She’ll always be my baby. The deep privilege and deeper pain of being her mother is watching her learn, grow, and need me less and less.

But there’s another facet to this independence: My daughter has already made the leap to sacrificing herself for my benefit. She could have clung to her fashion statement, but instead, she chose to forfeit. It gives me a glimpse into a future when I’ll call her asking for help rather than the other way around.

I already know she’ll always answer.

I’d have to write an encyclopedia about this kid to even scratch the surface of how wonderful she is. Maybe I will someday.

Just know that I love her madly, and today, she’s 10 years old. I’m a basket case thinking about how quickly a decade with her has flown by. Maybe I can strike a deal with the universe to make the next eight years crawl.

I wish I wasn’t so committed to keeping Evie largely off the Internet until she’s 18, since I’d love nothing more than to share all the photos and videos of my talented, beautiful, amazing daughter, but our hope as parents is to protect her from digital drama and scrutiny as long as we’re able. This is partly why I haven’t shared so much about her. And it will be tricky, as she gets older, to navigate the things she’s okay with me sharing.

Or maybe not.

She has, after all, always loved the spotlight.

If you enjoy reading Rollercoaster Road, please help it grow by liking, sharing, or leaving a comment. Thanks for joining me on the ride.

Rollercoaster Road

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