It's easy to get carried away with comments and pictures about my wonderful little granddaughter, but I certainly never want to overlook exactly how amazing I think her mother is.

[caption id="attachment_572" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Chief Consul Pauline Kastner in Surabaya"]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/40369_451299257847_161970137847_6180440_903380_n.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-572" title="40369_451299257847_161970137847_6180440_903380_n" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/40369_451299257847_161970137847_6180440_903380_n-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" /></a>[/caption]

My daughter Pauline, who had one of those momentous birthdays earlier this week, is only on her third tour as an officer in the Foreign Service. Despite that, she is already chief consul in the largest consulate in Indonesia, living in a city the size of Los Angeles.

Don't tell me the Department of State doesn't know what it's got in her.

I have always been proud of her, but I swear, she gets more impressive every year. She has done an incredible job of balancing her job responsibilities with her family life. She has been a wonderful mother to little Maddie, while still doing good enough work to get top-flight performance evaluations.

You certainly can't overlook how beautiful she is, either.

Pauline is someone who has worked very hard to make herself into the person she is, and one of the reasons I'm hoping to live as long as possible is that I want to see all the impressive things she will do in the course of the next 25 or 30 years.

There couldn't be a better daughter in the world, and no, I'm not biased.