Dear Ruthie

 

Dear Ruthie, 

Happy Double Digits Roo Roo! It is so hard to believe that you are TEN years old. 

When you were born I looked in those sparkly eyes of yours and I knew that you were going to spice up our lives. You keep us on our toes for sure! You are quick witted and funny and BRUTALLY honest. You are fierce but you also love fiercely. You are small on the outside but everything inside of you is BIG. You feel big feelings and have big worries and you love big and you have big thoughts and opinions. You are not one who accepts comfort easily. As you've said before "Ruthie doesn't cry!" When you get upset you don't want hugs and comfort unless it is YOUR idea. But when you decide you want to be comforted I get BIG squeezes. You don't trust others quickly but once someone has earned your trust you are very loyal. I can always tell when you've had a sub at school...there are only 2 or 3 subs at the school that have earned your trust. You're pretty sure all the rest of them are telling you allll the wrong things. It puts you in a very bad mood to have a sub who is not "Ruthie approved." You are competitive and you love soccer and swimming. This year we really saw you make lots of progress on the soccer field and it was so fun to watch! You work hard in school and will work hard on anything that is competition based. You always want to be the best! 

I love seeing how you fit in our family. When you were born we thought you would be our baby but now I can't imagine you as the baby of the family. And I can't imagine you without JP as your constant sidekick. You are a wonderful big sister and I love watching the special bond you and JP have. Saturday mornings its common for me to find y'all snuggled in his bed reading a book together or giggling or sitting quietly drawing. From the day we brought you home you were enamored with your big sisters. Ellie has always been your playmate. She's the one you want to play Legos with or other imaginative games. She's silly and rarely tries to mother you. This year you and Emerson seem to have settled on your roles in relation to each other. I think you may have finally accepted that she is in fact the oldest! Now it seems that Emerson is the one you look up to and go to for advice. And we can't forget Franklin. He tolerates you on a daily basis but he is very quick to curl up in your bed if he sees the nebulizer machine come out. He knows when you need someone to keep an extra eye on you! You keep all of us in line and our lives would certainly be boring without you around!

This year I have watched you grow more independent and I'm so proud of you and all the responsibilities you take on without being asked. You have always been so good at managing your allergy stuff and your OIT but this year you have really taken over your daily dosing. On days you are up before me you eat breakfast and do your dose and let me know what time you took it. You get two "off" days a week from dosing and you have thought it through and decided which days you'd prefer not to dose. If we have something that causes you not to dose on a different day you are great about adjusting your "off" day schedule. While I hate that you have a food allergy I am so proud of you from taking ownership of it. You've also gotten really good about grabbing your epipen bag as we head out the door. This was something I always did but this year you often get to it before I do. This year I've also loved seeing how you've taken ownership of your schoolwork. You write down your assignments each day and if you have a test coming up you always want to review the material far in advance so that you are comfortable with it. You're not always the easiest to work with when it comes to school work as you get frustrated very quickly BUT you still want to do the work even as you're falling to pieces! I'm hoping maybe soon you will learn to give yourself some grace when you don't know all the answers. 

One really fun thing we did this year is that you and I went to Chattanooga together with the fourth grade. It was a really fun trip and I loved getting to have the time with you one on one. In a large family it is so rare to spend more than a few hours one on one with any child and I got 2 days with you. I loved getting to just hang out with you and your friends. I really enjoyed getting to watch you with your peers. I would laugh because you would always start out with the girls but in the end you were usually hanging out with the boys. I loved getting to watch you try new things...like rock climbing. I loved watching you and your friends cheer each other on...and challenge each other to climb even higher. I am so glad you have friends that will cheer for you and then push you to do even more. 

Ruthie I am so glad that I get to be your mom. You challenge me and push me to my limits some days. You don't let me get away with anything and will call me out every time if you think I've dropped the ball. You have taught me how to parent a Ruthie...which is quite different from parenting any of your other siblings! And you bring me such delight. Those sparkly eyes will always remind me of your first few days in the world when I just knew we were in for something special. You are going to do big things little girl and I can't wait to see where your big personality takes you! I love you Roo!

Love, 

Mom

Dear Emerson

Dear Emerson, 

Happy 14th Birthday! 

I have absolutely LOVED watching you grow this year (and not just in height!). You have gained so much confidence. I think you can finally see what we've been telling your for years: that you are so talented and have so many gifts and not all of these talents and gifts are things that they test you on in school but they are things that will serve you SO well in life! I feel like you are starting to try to figure out who you are as a person, who you want to become and how you want to fit into your world. You have taken on some big leadership roles and have worked to grow as a leader. You are on yearbook this year and have really enjoyed doing that. It's been fun to see you learn some new skills and see how those skills can translate into the real world!

This year I feel like you've grown leaps and bounds with your school work. You have figured out a way to organize your work and keep up with assignments. I am so thankful to all those teachers along the way who went the extra mile and gave you tools to help you get to where you are today. Some of those teachers gave you organizational skills, some helped you academically and helped us find the tools that would help you learn, and some gave you confidence in your abilities and encouraged you when you struggled. I know that school has often been difficult and has often made you feel so down on yourself. I have seen you break down and I have seen you pick yourself back up and keep trying. I know that school still isn't easy for you but I see that you have taken all those struggles and used all those lessons you've learned to make things a little easier. You have really become so independent with your school work and I hope you are as proud of yourself as we are of you! 

You have found some great friends and I'm so grateful for that. I also love that you are still friends with your besties from Columbia. Those girls went through so much with you and their friendship never wavered. I am so glad you know what a true friend looks like and I hope as you grow older that you area able to use that experience to pick great friends. I know friendships at this age aren't always easy but hang in there. It really does get better the more life experience you have! 

I love watching you with your siblings. You and Ellie, with your completely opposite personalities, have always gotten along pretty well. And JP has always viewed you as his other mother. You and Ruthie have often clashed because you're both sure you're the oldest child. This year I've really seen your relationship with Ruthie change. I think you can finally see that she absolutely hero worships you and you will let her hang out in your room and you don't mind too much when she wants to copy you. I hope you realize just how wonderful she thinks you are!

This year you have continued year round swim. You always swam on the high school team for the first time. You have really grown a lot in your swimming and I am so proud of you. You had some breathing issues after having the flu last year and then had a minor shoulder injury. Both of those kind of slowed you down and affected your motivation. Then you did high school swim and it totally changed your perspective and you faced some hard truths and learned a big lesson on "you get out what you put in". I am so proud of you for facing the hard and being willing to listen to the improvements you needed to make to get better. 

Emerson Jane, 14 years ago you made me a mom. I held you in my arms and had no clue what life held in store for you but I knew that I loved you more than I could have ever imagined and that nothing could ever change that. I am so thankful for all you have taught me. I'm thankful for the hard times just as much as I'm thankful for the easy times. I have loved seeing you grow as a person and I can't wait to see what the next year holds for you! I know it won't always be easy but I hope you are always able to look behind you and see how you have faced adversity and come out on the other side a stronger person. I hope you always remember that God has a wonderful plan for your life even when it can be hard to see what His plan is!

I love you sweet girl!

Love, 

Mom

PS. In other news, Franklin seems to have forgiven you for pulling his fur when you were 8 months old. The other night he slept in your bed all night! 

Dear JP

Dear JP, 

 Happy Birthday sweet boy! It's hard to believe that you are EIGHT years old. You are SO much fun and our family wouldn't be complete without you! You keep us laughing with your dancing, funny jokes and silly facial expressions. You love to make everyone around you laugh and I love that about you. I hope that as you grow up you continue to look for ways to entertain others and work to bring happiness to your little corner of the world.

 This year you've spent a lot of time hanging with your neighborhood buddies. You have your little group of boys and y'all are always up to something! You love to play any kind of sport. Pickleball is one of your favorites right now but you also love football, basketball, swimming, and kickball. You've made some great friends at school too. I love seeing you at lunch interacting with your friends. They are a really sweet group of kids which makes me so happy. Speaking of school, you are doing great. You love your teacher and classmates. You are VERY strong in math and your reading has really come a long way in the last year. Your teachers always tell me how sweet you are and how good you are in class. This year you decided to run for student council class representative and won. I am so excited for you to have this experience and I hope you love it but most of all I am so proud of your bravery. I know you were a bit nervous to stand in front of your class and read your speech but you did it! And to top it off you're getting to do something that your sisters never did...and when you're the youngest of 4 this is a rare feat. 

 For years and years you were our grumpy kid and then one day you weren't. I'm real glad you outgrew that! You are pretty easy going now as long as you are fed frequently...lol! You do love to eat and are hungry ALL the time. When you get hungry you tend towards the dramatic side. That's how we know it's time for you to eat again. 

 JP, you are my sweet little helper. You love to help me in the kitchen, you will help me clean, you love to help daddy in the yard, you are always looking for ways to serve others and I am so thankful for your servant's heart. You have started taking on some neighborhood "jobs"...watering plants and collecting mail when neighbors go out of town. You take your responsiblities seriously and you have big plans for when you're old enough to cut grass! 

You spend most of your days running around in athletic shorts and tshirts wihtout a care about what you look like. But every now and then you have an occasion where you feel the need to get dressed up. You will painstakingly pick out an outfit, gel your hair, and put on some cologne. It is absolutely adorable to see. And I love the days where you try to pick out an outfit that matches daddy's. I love the way you look up to him and want to be like him and I hope you keep looking up to him and trying to be like him! 

I get a kick out of watching you with your sisters. Each relationship is different. Ruthie is your partner in crime. I'm pretty sure that when y'all are teenagers the two of you will be responsible for a quite a few of my gray hairs. When you're not up to shenannigans you can also be found snuggled in a chair reading a book or talking to each other. Emerson is your other mother. She'll snuggle you, read to you, and is happy to take you under her wing. Ellie is a little of both. She's where you turn when you need a quieter playmate but she's also been known to come up with some pretty elaborate, fun adventures. You have such a great friendship wiht each of your sisters and I am so thankful for how close y'all are (especially since you were absolutely terrified of them for the first few months of your life!).

 I have loved watching you grow and change this year. You are an absolute delight and I can't wait to see how you grow over the next year! 

 Love, Mom

Dear Ellie

Dear Ellie, Happy 12th birthday sweet girl! Oh how I have loved watching you this year. You started middle school, finally made it back on stage, made new friends, earned a new nickname, and made us laugh more times than I can count. You are sweet and sassy and tiny and strong and I love every aspect of the person you are becoming. This year you started middle school and of course took theater as an elective and then of course you joined drama club and then tried out for the school play, Dear Edwina Jr. And of course you made it. And we got to see you light up the stage once again after 3 years of not being in a show. And it did my mama heart good to see you sparkle. You had a grueling rehearsal schedule and every day you came home so excited to be doing what you loved with other kids who loved it as much as you. You also finally found a theater class in Greenville that you liked so I'm excited to see where that takes you over the next few years. I feel that one of the things that gives me the most joy as a parent is to see my children doing things that bring them immense joy. This year you started middle school. It wasn't always easy as friendships changed and you also had to juggle having multiple teachers and organization is not your strong suit but you handled it. You tried out playing an instrument (viola) and decided that wasn't really your thing but I loved that you gave it a shot, stuck with it through hte year and then we'll try something different next year. Life is all about trying new things and figuring out what works for you. I love that you still love to read. I have a whole album of pictures of you reading in various places. You have no problem finding a quiet corner and pulling your book out in the middle of a party. It's who you are and as an avid reader myself I see no problem with this! I love that reading is where you go when you need a breather. You are our introvert and often just need a short break from a crowd. You need a minute to escape into a world of your imagination. I also love that even as avid a reader as you are you still want me to read a book to you at night. As soon as we finish one book you ask me what we're reading next. It takes us about 10x longer to read them together than it would take for you to read them on your own but you never read ahead and you never complain. I love that I get to have that time with just you and I think you love it too. You are our entertainer. I just never know what is going to come out of your mouth! You usually have some witty comment and I try to be close enough to you to hear it! You have made some wonderful friends in Greenville but Lucy, in Columbia, is still your best friend. I love that y'all can go weeks without talking and then spend hours on facetime talking and laughing. You earned a new nickname this year, Banana Slug. We were looking through the bin of summer clothes and you rejected a pair of shorts because, and I quote you, "I can only think of 2 words when I see those shorts: banana slug." Who even says that?? It was such an Ellie comment and so we now loving refer to you as Banana Slug! You are such a good sister. I have always loved the way that you just slid right into your place in the family. I love that Emerson and you complement each other so well. You understand each other and the needs that each one of you has. From the time you were just a tiny thing you were always willing to let her tell you what to do...until you weren't. And she knew that when you put your foot down you meant it and that was that. You are my child that I rarely find playing with all your siblings together but am more likely to find having one on one time with someone. I am so thankful for the relationship that you have with each of your siblings and I love to see how different those relationships are but they all work and are all beautiful. I can not wait to see what this year has in store for you. You are hoping you will grow (you're a little bitter that Ruthie can wear the same size clothes as you) but I do love that you are my tiny little one. I hope that no matter what you will be happy and content and have many fun adventures and opportunities. I love to see your excitment over little things and I hope you always find happiness in the small things in life. I love you my Ellie Belly, Banana Slug! Love, Mom