What a blessing to have a bonus baby. Mary and Joseph had one. They were a bit shocked at their baby's arrival. This is the time of year when entire populations celebrate the miracle of a famous surprise birth. (At least, all the neighbors were surprised. God knew.) Some of us have been in a similar and still miraculous situation. Subsequently, there are many families where a child is described with adjectives such as "surprise." We don't use that word. We call our youngest our bonus baby. Julia does surprise us every day, true, but since her arrival, she's been an unexpected bonus in our lives. She's the exclamation mark on our sentence. She's truly the prize in our Cracker Jacks. She's the gift that keeps on giving.

At age eleven, Julia is leaving childhood behind. She's in the netherworld of a girl growing up; she's put her childhood toys in the basement but she's not yet allowed on Facebook. The greatest longing of her heart is to get a cell phone. Her siblings did not achieve cell phone status until they turned thirteen. If we give her a cell phone at age 11 1/2, the flack from the older four will be cacophonous. (SAT word for loud and unpleasant.) They already accuse her of getting everything she ever wanted. Of course she does!

Like many girls her age, Julia is part Miley Cyrus, but she's the best part. She belts out songs like she's the star of her own Disney show. She is also a comedienne who dishes out the quickest quips in Roanoke. She is often funny be design and sometimes funny unintentionally. Either way, it's hilarious.

For instance, the other morning we were insisting that Trevor, the red twin, take off the blue shirt he was wearing to school. After many mix-ups, we were forced to assign colors to our identical twin boys when they were just three months old. We color coded them and they've never questioned the habit until recently. Trevor wanted to wear blue (Danny's color!) to school but I wouldn't let him out of pity for their dear teachers.

Julia joined in the struggle. "What do you call two people who look exactly alike?" she queried. "Colons?"

We all burst into gales of laughter. Caroline was the first to recover. She gently corrected her baby sister by say, "I think you mean clones."

"Oh, right, " Julia agreed.

"Do you even know what a colon is?" I asked, still foolishly giggling.

"Yes!" she insisted, "It's the punctuation mark you put before a list." I explained the more earthy definition of colon, the section of the large intestine which, well, you know the rest. Hey, no offense, brothers, but if the shoe fits....

That's our Julia. She has always had a unique and zany perspective on life. She has never worried about finding just the right word in a given situation. She makes up her own. This why we all still call a piano a "companio" and Kroger "Krogurt" (rhymes with yogurt.) Once when someone sneezed, Julia couldn't remember the expression, "Gesundheit," so she called out, "Kielbasa!" Who cares that she replaced a German blessing with a Polish sausage? Certainly not Julia. She's just doing her own thing.

We found out that Julia needed glasses when she was in third grade. She was thrilled. She knew just what kind of glasses she wanted, "black rectangles." She set the fashion in her elementary school. She was so sporty in her specs that the guy at Sears' Optical offered her a job. She even insisted that specs be added to the littlest bird that graces this column. This summer I used her affinity for glasses as a way to describe her to a local photographer who was looking for some fresh faces.

But two weeks before the photo shoot, she announced she wanted contacts, right away, and that she must have them before 6th grade began. Stunned, and looking for an excuse to delay the purchase, I mentioned how I had told the photographer that she loved wearing glasses. "What should I tell her?" I wailed.

"Just tell her you don't know your little girl very well," Julia patiently explained. Oh, my bonus baby!

It will be just be our little secret, Bella readers. I'm not ready for my fifth teenager. how I long to keep Julia my little baby. I'd like to keep her out of the Juniors department. I'd like to keep her offline. I'd like to keep her bedtime at 9 and make her favorite place snuggling between her parents. Just for this one, final, bonus child, I'd like to stop the march of time and maybe twist the hands of time back a few turns.

Julia, I miss your little self. You were the three-year-old who wore mismatched dress-up-shoes and angel wings to church. I miss that baby girl. But your father and I rejoice in the young woman you are becoming. Your unique perspective on life is shown through the lens of your camera. The way you photograph the world proves that you see clearly what most of us miss.

Bless you, bonus baby. Just keep on being Julia. It's very important work and you're the only one for the job.