Happy Birthday Ruthie!

 

Dear Ruthie, 

Happy Birthday Roo Roo! Today you are ELEVEN! I look at you, the youngest girl, and I can't believe we are already to eleven. It's crazy to think that you will start middle school in less than a year. Some days I think you are eleven going on sixteen. You love alll the skin care/beauty products. You have strong opinions about what you wear. (Which is really funny considering you wore the same penguin hat every day for almost an entire school year when you were in second grade. And there was another school year where you wore the same ratty pullover every day.) From the day you were born you have wanted nothing more than to keep up with your older sisters and that hasn't changed a bit. It's fun to watch your relationship with them. Ellie is your buddy. You love to play Legos together and y'all will spend hours sitting in your room building houses for all your Lego people.  Emerson is the sister you want to hang out and do nail or talk about beauty products or what things are trendy at the moment. You also are more than happy to let her clean and organize your room on a regular basis. In fact at one point this year you had her on a schedule for cleaning your room! And then there is your relationship with JP. He is definitely your partner in crime. I never know what silliness you two will cook up next. Y'all will be snuggled up reading a book together one minute and the next you're rolling around wrestling. No doubt the relationship you have with each of your siblings is special and you love them all fiercely and I'm so thankful for that.  

Ruthie you are definitely our strong willed child. You won't ever back down once you take a stance. You are tough as nails on the outside (you hate crying in front of anyone if you get hurt) but you feel big feelings on the inside. While that strong will doesn't always serve you well at home, I know that there will come a day when it will serve you well. Nobody is every going to walk over Ruthie!

I am so proud of how you manage your OIT. You get your dose every day and you keep up with what time your rest time is over. Having worked with children with chronic conditions for years, I am always so impressed with how you take ownership of your allergy and your dosing. I am so thankful that you are so agreeable about dosing. I think it helps that you do remember what it was like to always have to question what you were eating and to often miss out on treats that others were eating at birthday parties.

This year we've had lots of fun! We did some skiing and you were good enough to go off with your sisters to ski which you loved (and of course you had no trouble keeping up with them)! We went on a cruise which of course you loved. We went to the beach. You did swim team. You moved to a new soccer team back in the spring and we have loved watching you grow as a player under the instruction of some great coaches. You learned to be an aggressive player and you've learned a lot more ball control and you are also a wonderful teammate. We've played lots of board and card games this year. You love to play Rumikub and are crazy good at it! This year you and I did mother/daughter camp. It was the BEST experience and I am SO thankful that we got to spend a weekend together. I loved the one on one time we had and I think you loved it too! You chose to do that again this coming year instead of going to summer camp with your sisters. While I'd love for you to experience camp with your sisters, I do love that we will once again get some sweet time together. It's so rare for me to get an extended period of one on one time with any of y'all and I so treasure it when it happens. 

This year you've had a great school year. Fourth grade had its ups and downs but you are thriving in fifth grade. You have SO many sweet friends in your class...and FINALLY ended up back in the same class as your bestie Abby R who was in your second grade class. This year you are doing safety patrol and I was pretty sure you'd hate it once you had car line duty on a freezing cold morning but you've been a trooper and love being a safety patrol! 

Not only do you have a sweet group of friends at school but you have the sweetest friends at church and in the neighborhood. As we get in to the "tween" years I am so thankful for the friends you have. They are good friends who love you and care about you. 

Ruthie, I can't wait to see what next year brings. You'll start middle school (!) which is crazy to me. You are growing up but I'm so thankful that at night you still want me to read to you and you still want me to sing to you and snuggle with you. Even though you are getting older you still love your stuffed animals and your nasty old pillow that you sleep with every night. You are at that age where your room has a box full of squishmallows and fidgets right next to your skin care fridge and caboodle. I'm so glad you still have some of that little girl in you!

I love you Roo!

Love, 

Mom