from the corner of my couch: Dear Emmie

Dear Emmie,

Happy 10th Birthday sweet girl! This is a big birthday milestone...double digits! These past 10 years have been full of laughter and tears and easy times and hard times and lots of memories. I treasure each and every minute with you (even the really hard minutes because they have made you and me stronger and better) and I am so proud of the person you are today.

As I look back on this year I have so, so many feelings. A year ago I could feel you slipping away from me and I was lost as to what to do to help you. I told someone that I felt like we were losing you. It is an absolutely gut wrenching feeling to feel like you are losing your child. In the space of just a few weeks last fall you went from being a sweet, sensitive girl who was maybe a bit hyper and tended to live a bit at the extremes emotionally to a child who didn't care about consequences, was mostly out of control behaviorally and had severe anxiety. I KNEW my Emmie was still in there I just couldn't figure out how to reach you. We were going through boxes of Band-Aids as you picked at the skin on your fingers until they bled, you were occasionally having what seemed to be panic attacks, you were miserable at school, and you were all over the place all the time. Everywhere you went you seemed to get in trouble and I felt like I was constantly getting calls and emails about your behavior. I knew this wasn't you and that something was wrong but nothing we did seemed to help. I honestly hope that as you grow up you don't remember much of this past year. It was hard and you spent a lot of time feeling sad and lonely and defeated. But I hope that if you remember anything you remember the good moments and the people who were there for you. I hope that you remember that dance made you happy and that your dance teacher, Ms. Bailey, was probably the one adult in your life, outside of family, who gave you the most love and support during this time. She loved on you so well and she seemed to be one of the few people you responded well to. I will forever be thankful to her for being able to pick out and praise the good while also not letting you get away with anything! I hope you remember your sweet group of friends who stood by you even as you changed so much. Friends like that are the kind you keep forever and in a year when you had so many "friend problems" friends that stick by you and love you no matter what are gold.

Somewhere over the winter we determined that it must be your new seizure med that was causing all the problems. The thing was that this was the third medicine we had tried and the first one to actually mostly control your seizures. We just thought if we could get through two years of the medicine controlling your seizures then we could wean off of it and get our Emmie back.

When we saw the neurologist at the end of May he pushed hard to try a different medicine just to see if it helped the seizures and had less side effects. That medicine has become our miracle. Not only are you not having ANY seizures but by mid June we had our Emmie back. Sweet girl I can't tell you how much it breaks my heart to think about what you went through last year. I knew the whole time that somewhere inside of you was the real Emmie and it made me SO happy when we started seeing glimpses of her coming back. Your counselor, whom you started seeing about mid way through the school year, saw you in mid May and then didn't see you again until late August and he couldn't believe that we had brought him the same child! He was amazed at how much more focused and calm and happy you were in August.

I am constantly amazed at how well you have rebounded this year. So far this has probably been your best school year, academically and emotionally, since the seizures started. I have loved watching your confidence, which was absolutely shattered last year, grow. I have watched you handle big disappointments with poise and grace. I have loved watching you work really hard to master a difficult concept. I have loved seeing how much your sense of responsibility has grown this year as I have stepped back and have counted on you to be more independent when it comes to school work and also with getting your chores done and taking your medicine. This year you picked tap back up at dance and though most of the other kids are older than you and you are pretty timid in class you have worked SO hard and when I watched you this week at open house I was so proud of all you had learned!

Emmie you are one of the sweetest souls I know. You have a heart for helping others and I am incredibly proud of how giving and selfless you can be when you see someone who needs some extra love. I know that this trait will cause you to touch people's lives wherever you go in life. You may do big, great, important things and change the world or you may just change your little corner of the world but I know that wherever you go and whatever you do you will bring happiness to others.

Most of all I love seeing how happy you are this year. Sure it's not all roses and unicorns and there are days when you are for sure a tween but you have been through fire and you came out better for it. I hope that you don't remember all the nitty gritty awful moments this year but I do hope you remember that it was really, really hard and frustrating and that your brain felt like it was going in a million different directions at once but that there was a point where things got better. I hope you hold on to that lesson, that even in the worst of times there is hope. I hope you remember a little of the feelings you had this year and use those memories to show grace and compassion to others who may be struggling with similar things. I hope that you remember those poeple who stood by you through it all and loved you no matter what and that as you grow you surround yourself with those types of poeple and that you become that person to friends going through hard times.

This year I have loved watching you grow as a dancer. I have loved seeing you pick back up reading, which had become so hard and stressful between the seizures and the adhd. I have loved seeing you develop a love for cooking and not only for cooking but for also plating your dish in an artistic way. Maybe we'll see you on a cooking show one day! Right now you are into all things VSCO girl and it makes me laugh when you rave over a scrunchie (you would be horrified if you knew how many I had thrown away back in the late 90s!). You are funny and loving and exuberant and kind and sometimes you are a full blown tween who makes me want to pull my hair out. But that's ok. That's how you're supposed to be right now!

Emmie, when I first held you in my arms 10 years ago I never dreamed of the challenges your first 10 years would hold. But I am so amazed at all you have overcome and the life lessons you have learned and I am incredibly proud of the girl you have become. I love that 10 years later you still want to snuggle with me and hold my hand and you still want me to read you a bedtime story.

Emerson Jane, you are an incredible gift from God and I am forever thankful that I have been chosen to be your mama.

Love,

Mom