Can I still call her Jazzy-poo as a teenager? What about Jazzmatazzberry? Jazzy went to bed as a child and will wake up as a teenager.

A teenager. She turns 13 today.

I worried about Jazmine when she was little. She was so frail and tiny. She was ghostly white with wispy thin baby hair while her siblings were perfectly tan with beautiful thick hair worthy of commercials. Jazzy knocked her front tooth out and had glasses. She was pathetically adorable but I didn’t know how that would work out for her as a teenager and eventually as an adult.

It worked. She is beautiful. Her hair is so thick that she just had it thinned a couple days ago. She has freckles on her nose that remind me of the innocence and playfulness inside her. Her smile is contagious and lights up a room.

Jazmine was quiet. She didn’t say much and when she did, her voice was quiet. She never seemed quite aware of her own existence and her head was a balloon floating around in the clouds barely attached to her earthly physical body. I used to look at her and wonder how this little peanut could grow up to be anything but the oblivious baby I saw in front of me. Around the time she turned 10, Jazzy started having her own opinions, spoke up, and stood up for what she thought was right even when it was the very difficult thing to do. She looked out for others and wasn’t afraid to stand for those who couldn’t stand themselves. From that point on, she’s blossomed more and more every day into this strong, capable young lady.

I’ll share a couple quick Jazmine stories. The first one happened when Jazmine was 2 years old. Jazzy had PICA, meaning she would eat non-food items. Her non-food of choice was paper products. We couldn’t keep books or paper in her room. I went to get her up from a nap one day and must have accidentally left a book in her room. She ate a chunk from the top. The book was called “I Will Never, Not Ever, Eat a Tomato” about a picky eater. It was so ironic that I took a picture and to this day it’s one of my favorite pictures.

My second Jazmine story happened when she was 4. I was her Girl Scout leader. Before our meeting, I asked her what her favorite season was. She answered soccer. So we discussed seasons and what they were. Then she participated in a 90 minute GS meeting full of activities about how animals need things like food, water, and shelter. 90 minutes. At the end of that hour and a half, I asked Jazmine to tell me one thing animals needed. She thought for a while, appeared to have a eureka moment, and proudly answered- seasons!

*pic- Angelic Jazmine over Los Angeles