My daughter is going to be 30 in February and I’m already — here in November — freaking out about it. How the hell do I have a 30 year old child? 29, I can handle. It’s still her twenties. She’s still fairly young. I’m still fairly young. But 30? 30 is a full fledged grown ass adult. 30 is a lot of years.

If I blink it’s 29 years ago and I’m watching her take her first steps. We have a picture of the moment and in the background on the tv, CNN is showing the start of the Gulf war. It’s January 17, 1991. She’s just a baby.

Then she’s three and I realize she’s not progressing developmentally like the other kids her age and I have her tested and she ends up in a special ed pre-school at age four. On the first day of school, I drive behind the bus and there’s a decal on the bus that says “property of nassau county special education program” or something like that and I cry. It’s September, 1994. She’s just a little kid.

She’s five and in kindergarten in the public school and it’s a disaster. We transfer her in first grade to the special ed program. They want me to put her on Ritalin. The first day she takes it, she says “I don’t like this. I don’t feel like me.” I throw the Ritalin down the toilet bowl and I am determined that she will get through this — we will get through this — without medication. It’s December 1996 and I cry a lot.