Next week, when you switch on the 'Today' show, you will see my great friend Joyce Maynard talking with Katie Couric about how Joyce, as a 24-year-old, first-time mom, she became obsessed with her daughter Audrey's beauty -- and how that obsession never quite went away.

She'll do so as part of an anthology called "It's a Girl!' compiled by Andi Buchanan for Seal Press, who also did a standout job of creating one called (surprise!) 'It's a Boy!' Since I have heard the first words spoken twice and the latter five times, I have essays in both.

But none of them is about this topic.

Perhaps because I've now been away from my kids for a week, and alone, and the only time I hear their voices is in the background of an exercise tape a friend made for me,

I've been thinking a great deal about each and all of them. I've been thinking about what a great radio deejay Rob would make -- with his righteous heart, caustic tongue, love of music and knowledge of gadgetry. I've been thinking about Dan facing Comp I in summer school -- a writer without hands . Last night, I missed seeing Marty dressed up in his tux on prom court; and Mia is practicing for her play. Will, at 2 1/2, now talks to me on the telephone as if he were five.

But Francie's heart breaks so much when I call that she can barely speak to me. She just says, in a breathy way, "I .. want you home to see the lilacs."

Francie -- how do I explain you?

I, too, am obsessed with Francie's beauty, though not with keeping her thin nor with molding her into any particular style. When I see her, I make her eyes roll by repeating the line from 'The Highwayman' about 'the landlord's black-eyed daughter, twining a dark red love knot into her long black hair...'

But her cute smile and that long black hair aren't the best things about Francie. She's not just smart, either. She's, uh... bossy. She's a strategic planner. If she's ever pulled a punch, it wasn't when I was around. "Dad," she'll say quietly but with intent. "If you'd waited to start the broccoli until the potatoes were done, we wouldn't be in this fix."

And when her older brother (who quickly regresses to age 10 and called her a 'weenie' and a 'big mouth' at this point) says that Ben Franklin discovered electricity, Francie says, "Well, Marty he discovered it was THERE, but he didn't really discover it. Not anymore than Columbus discovered America. Now, he did discover things it could be used for, and where it came from...."

When she's angry, she walks out into the garage, lets out one blood-curdling scream, and comes back in, composed. We're usually kind of embarrassed, because she wouldn't have done this if we hadn't all been bickering and trying to talk at the same time.

Francie was born, not first to me, but to a wonderful young woman named Luz, who lives in a place in Texas, a border town that is .. not so good. I'm proud of Luz; she's achieved much more in her life than many young single moms. But there has been chaos along the way; and I'm glad Francie was spared that part, as is her birthmom. Luz and i are close, and when I talk to her about the way Francie is, how fluently she reads, how brave she is when it come to any kind of injustice, Luz says she gets that part from me.

But not all from me.

From her brothers, she got permission to be a tomboy and stay a tomboy when all the other girls were turning to miniature kitties and mini skirts. When she dresses up, it has to be in a long black skirt with a little slit up the side and a velvet jacket, because she knows that cute doesn't work with her, but regal does. And when she explains things, it's not the easy way. It's in the way of someone who's not parroting information she heard from someone else, but something she's thought about. She also has a fat chuckle and a fine sense of absurdity, spending the whole day of her brother's baptism answering the door in a red clown wig and a vampire cape.

And when she was only about seven, and another of her brothers said that if a certain thing happened he would quit a job -- it did and he did -- Francie said, "You shouldn't, because then they'll blame you and it'll never change."

Which is why my husband, the other night when we were driving home said, apropos nothing, "I love all our kids."

And I asked, "Is there a 'but' in that?"

He admitted, yes, there was.

He said, "It's just that if you were going to start the human race over, you'd have to use Francie as the prototype."

He was right.

She's half-Mexican -- and demographers say that the decades to come will only make the world more beige -- and she was, for quite a while, the child of a single mom. I adopted France a year after I was widowed, to the horror of my family (who later thought this was the best decision anyone ever made).

She also has good stats. She's very smart, and in math and social studies especially. And she comes from a huge family -- an Italian/Danish/Indian/Irish/Lebanese/German family. She could celebrate St. Patrick's Day and Cinco de Mayo. Kind of the poor woman's Kennedy clan.

She would never get mad and quit and let the bad guys win. She's the most tenacious person I've ever met (sometimes to my own woe, when it's 9 p.m. and she's reminding me that we never made the homemade applesauce the way I promised). She would be send in the Marines if she had to, but she would be crafty enough to wait until there was no other choice, and bold enough to rattle every sabre in the closet first. And when the enemy backed off, she would have sense enough to know that a former enemy can be a proud friend.

She's got it all. And yes, of course I feel that way because I'm her mother. But you only have to look at her picture on this website to see that I'm righteous here.

Now, I have to live at least thirty-five more years so he can trot me out in my demure cream-colored suit for her Inauguration. She'll get choked up during her speech (she's absurdly sentimental) but she'll gather herself and proceed.

And what a relief it will finally be, to know that we've gotten over it all -- the gender stuff, the racial stuff, the background stuff. For the first time, we can say, "Madame President" and no one will have to worry that she's too rich or too poor, too ambitious or too dumb, or that she owes too many favors.

I've seen Francie bite her lip so hard she left marks wanting to do what friends wanted in order to be popular, but have to stop herself because it was wrong. She wants terribly to be liked, but she's never been for sale.

She has never spoken a racist word, or, so far as I know, had a racist thought -- although a few were directed at her when she was little, one by a local pediatrician who worried that she and other adopted kids might bring TB to our neighborhood.

In short, I wish I were more like Francie. Even her older brothers, all of whom she drives to distraction with her reminders, admire her. Her little sister could definitely be her social secretary. Her little brother, who already argues like a prosecutor, though he probably only knows 200 words, might be a good attorney general.

And this was predicted. When Francie was born, a friend of mine worked for then-President Bill Clinton. A few days later, Hilary Clinton sent Francie a onesie with a picture of the White House and 'Future President' across the belly.

I will visit her often, because I like big beds and room service.

Francie Nolan Brent for President, 2040.

As her slogan read when she ran (unsuccessfully) for third-grade president, "You Could Do a Lot Worse."

I didn't write this essay for 'It's a Girl!' but there are many more, and many that are wiser and funnier, in Andi Buchanan's wonderful book from Gray Seal Press. Obviously, anyone who's a mother to a girl deserves it for next Sunday. So, do that.