Eleven years old

Dear Rylee,

I held your hand tonight in the van, for miles down the dark, rainy highway on our way home from your little brothers’ birthday dinner.  I squeezed you tight and thought you’d let go but you just held tighter.  We’d been talking birthdays and gifts and Kenya.  You talk often of your friend there, your sponsored child who lives across the world from us.  She is never far from your thoughts, your heart.  But especially today.  She’s just about to have a birthday too, the exact same age as you.  I doubt she’s ever heard the term “tween” even if that’s the category her age falls into.  I also doubt she’s ever heard of Playmobil toys.

You have been saving for a long time for a very specific, sizable Playmobil set.  One with cows and a milking room and all sorts of cool farm stuff.  Tonight on our rainy day home you told me you’d been thinking.  That instead of wanting that set that you wanted to put that money toward the trip you plan to take to meet your African sister-friend in about two years.

You also asked if you could request that for your birthday and Christmas you simply get money toward that same goal instead of presents.  You explained why, having thought it all through quite obviously and knowing the cost would be great and it would take some planning, some setting aside of certain things in order to be able to go.  You told me you really didn’t need more presents but that you just wanted so much to be able to go to Kenya.
That’s when I took your hand in the van.  With tears and a heart plum full of love for you, my oldest daughter, I told you you were beautiful…that your heart was beautiful…that I loved who you were and how you cared about the things that matter most.  It was one of those moments where everything is crystal clear and you don’t want to forget a single detail.  You aren’t one to say what you don’t mean and I knew as you spoke that you meant every word.

You are indeed a beauty.  Inside and out.  We are insanely blessed to have you as our first born.  The gift you are to my life, to our family is beyond any measure.  You spent your first weekend as an eleven year old sewing.  First pillowcase dresses for girls in poverty in Africa…then sewing matching dresses with your dear friend, dresses that you wore together to church on Sunday.

I’m well aware we are on the cusp of a new era of parenting as we creep closer to the teen years.  While that will hold its own set of wonder and challenge, for now I’m savoring the girlhood just a bit longer and relishing what we have right now.

So grateful that you are here.

Love always,

Mama

All in the family

One of the challenges that I’d never really thought much about that we would face as our family grew was that we would have choices to be made about what sorts of things we would say yes to outside the things we do at home.  Not that we spend our days here in a bubble not engaging with the outside world.  Not at all so.  We love having a steady stream of people here for one thing or another.

Some of our friends are highly involved and committed to year around sports.  While for certain families this works great, it also has the potential to fragment the family quite a bit.  Dinners together are the exception instead of the rule.  The costs for kids who move beyond recreation-level sports are into the many hundreds of dollars per season.  However, even for just 6 weeks of YMCA level, “for fun” soccer for our kids it would have cost us almost $500.

When one child excels in a sport, it’s easy to get excited and put others on the sidelines (literally and figuratively).  We’ve watched this play out just this past year in fact.  It is harder than I’d have guessed to find things that a family with several children can be involved in together.

Two years ago this fall we happened upon a county wide 4-H meeting near us.  We stopped and talked with each club leader for any animals we were interested in.  The commitment levels varied a great deal.  The personality and “feel” of the groups did as well.  We still lived in our tiny rambler with our five children, mostly quite happily.  We had chickens and a dog and a cat.  We were far from anything that resembled any sort of country, agricultural life.  But we signed up anyway.  Figuring we could just learn about animals, make some friends and have some fun.

We had no idea what we were in for.  We spent that first year learning all sorts of interesting things about dairy goats.  But better than that we made some great friends.  Grown up ones as well as kid ones.  Each of our children were challenged to give presentations to the group.  Learning to stand up in front of your peers and share about something is such a helpful lifelong skill.

When we had the opportunity to move part way through that year we found ourselves living at the end of an unmaintained county road with a small pasture already in place.  And it happened to be just about kidding season.  Three baby goats quickly found their way to our little family farm and into our hearts.

Of course fair season is the culmination of the 4-H year.  We didn’t really “get” that the first year.  Last year we showed up at one small community fair and had a ball.  This year we did the same fair (pictures below!) but had anticipated all year long that we would do the Big One.  The full Monty of the fair world around these parts.  But it requires its own post which I promise to work on this week.  For now, here are some snapshots of us enjoying our time at Silvana together.  Even just a one-day, all day event for seven people isn’t a small affair….but it was insanely fun for all of us.  Finn included!

Snapshots of September

Words will follow up later but for now, a few photos to tell the story of September…

(insert photo of the one that got away here)

Delighting in daughters

Her blanket is in the van and its dark and late and my foot has a tiny piece of glass in it and I don’t want to limp outside to get it.  She is too tired to argue so she gently takes my hand and cradles her cheek with my palm just like she would with her blankie.  She holds on to my other hand with her tiny one and I watch her eyes flutter.  Mine keep closing from a longer than most day of the hardest work.  But I will them back open to make sure I don’t miss getting to watch her fall asleep.

There is something delicious and other-worldly about little girls.  Her lips are a perfect tiny rosebud and her curls hang all around her face.  She reaches out to touch things that aren’t there and makes the softest little sounds as she drifts off.  Her skin is unblemished and untouched by age and I soak in all that she is in this moment.  She possesses a tender, sweet spirit and I pray for it and her to be protected in all the years to come.  That somehow she can cultivate and grow in her feminine, soft loveliness in this ever-so-mixed up world.

The older daughter, my first born, she has this intangible ability to sense how people feel around her.  Maybe that’s why she went to all the effort today to set up a tea party in the family room for us girls.  She thought of everything.  Put Ray LaMontagne on the CD player and a fan on for ambient noise.  Tried to light candles but couldn’t find a lighter.  Put a table cloth over the old card table and sprinkled rose petals from the yard all over the table.  She played two roles even, server/waitress and the friend joining us who was running late.  She switched between roles throughout our lunch.  Made sure to tell me I would be so impressed by the baker who’d made our cookies we were eating “she has FIVE kids, can you believe it? and she made these delicious cookies and they are gluten free!”  I grinned big and marveled at her nine year old self, play acting and still managing to compliment me in the most darling fashion.  There were even little umbrellas in our iced tea!  I rode the happy of our tea all day long.  I replayed it all over and over and was unceasingly thankful that I am blessed with these two daughters.

A nine year old!

Nine years ago last week we welcomed a tiny, sick, premature baby into our family and became parents for the first time.  She has grown into an amazing, beautiful girl who will be a young woman before we know it.  This is her birthday letter (part of it at least…) from this year:

  You are nine years old.  My heart bursts with gratitude for the girl you are becoming.  As I watched you open gifts last night for your birthday you were so grown up and polite and genuine as you found delight in each present you had been given.  I did not have to remind you to say thank you and you were so grateful and so quick to appreciate what you received.  It reflected a growing up, maturing heart that is often a beautiful reflection of Jesus to those around you.

Your heart for others Rylee, its amazing.  And for years now I’ve agonized over the lack of friends for you in our life and how hard daily life with your brother can be day in and day out.  You endure a lot with him and sometimes you have such a great time.  But there are days that he hurts you with words, hands and attitude.  We’ve tried our best to provide friendship-making-opportunities for you but nothing great has panned out.

Until now.  God has heard our many prayers and He has opened up new doors with a sweet group of girls that I can see becoming long time, precious friends for you.  He cares so much about you.  He knew just who you would be and just what you would need.  As you head into the pre-teen years, you will crave companions and these new girls are perfectly suited to share life with you.  They love animals, they are in 4-H, they go to our co-op, they have parents who love Jesus….the list goes on.  I just want to make sure I wrote you about how faithful God has continued to be to you and how much we see Him in and around you.

You love to put your baby brother down for naps and are so proud when you get him to sleep.  You often ask me if I got much sleep when you see me in the morning.  You are quick to help with meal preparation and love, love to organize things.  You share.  A lot.  You are the apple of your little cousin Ruby’s eye.  I’m pretty sure you’ll need chiropractic help for your back after all the time you LOVE spending holding little ones.

You’ve identified our baby pattern and have resolved that the “next baby God gives us will be a boy”.  It’s that simple to you.  Our value of life, all life, is so internalized in you – it often truly blows me away.  How you will live out your life and your purpose with driving truths as counter culture as these I do not know.  I do know that your dad and I cannot wait to see your life continue to unfold.  Your sensitivity to what is going on around you in the lives, faces and hearts of others is far, far beyond your years.

YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL.

YOU ARE OUR TREASURE.

Our life, our family is so, so much better because of you.

Happy 9^th birthday sweet girl!

Modeling the pillowcase dress she sewed last week at a 4-H sewing workshop!  After she shows it at the fair it will be donated to an orphanage in Haiti.