Happy 18th Birthday, Willow Palin

Willow Bianca Faye Palin was born this day in 1994, missing July 4th by less than 24 hours. Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was a Wasilla City Councilwoman on Seat E and a hockey mom on the PTA at the time. She wrote in Going Rogue, pages 66 and 67:

"Because Todd was on the Slope a lot, the Carter family usually babysat Track and Bristol during the Monday night meetings. Later in my first council term, the kids started school and i got involved in the PTA. Then our third child, pretty little Willow Bianca Faye, came along. I went into labor with her on the Fourth of July while kayaking with the Menards on Memory Lake. I so wanted a patriotic baby that I paddled as hard as I could to speed up the contractions, but she held out until the next day. After she was born, I took Willow to council meetings with me, toting her in her car seat and rucking her next to my legs under the old wooden council table. I didn't care too much what the good old boys said about it either."

In Gov. Palin Predicts Media Boobery on Breastfeeding, I recounted what Gov. Palin wrote in reference to nursing Willow in a Snugli while cutting a radio ad. The relevant paragraph is also on Page 67 of Going Rogue.

Now, today, 18 years later Willow has transitioned into a strong, fiercely independent adult woman who may some day smash glass ceilings with her own sonic booms. Today, for Willow is not merely a birthday, but a significant rite of passage.

The staff of US for Palin wish Willow a birthday and a future filled with love, joy, health, abundance.