Thirteen

Say what? My firstborn is a teenager? I haven’t quite come to grips with it.

She’ll be starting 8th grade in a few weeks. She’s happy to be at the top of the food chain of middle school. I’m already dreading next year when I’ll have a high schooler. Granted, she’s young for her grade. We could have sent her to pre-K, but we were afraid she’d be bored academically. And we never expected her to be an athlete, so we weren’t concerned about her physically being smaller than her peers.

I mean, look at this little girly girl!

She was such a girly girl that she absolutely refused to wear bluejeans until about third grade. Once, when I was behind on laundry*, all that was clean was a pair of jeans. I made her put them on, and then she cried and cried and said, “I look like a boy!” So we pulled out the least dirty outfit she owned and she wore that to school.

So can you blame us for never imagining that we’d spend our summer days watching this:

Or our fall days at volleyball meets, our mid-winter days at basketball games, our late-winter days at volleyball meets, our spring days at track meets, and some more volleyball thrown into summer for good measure?

She does still have the girly girl element going on, always tying a cute ribbon of some kind around her ponytail.

She’s a hard worker, a good friend, a gifted singer. We couldn’t ask for a more wonderful daughter. (Yet somehow we lucked out and got 2, but I’ll save that for the other one’s birthday 2 months from today!)

Happy Birthday, Maddog!

And one more just for fun:

*(I can’t even type that without laughing…yeah, right, just that one time, a long time ago, when somehow I was behind on laundry. What I remember about the day Madeline was born was that we had no clean clothes at home and my mom came over and did hours and hours of laundry and had it all done when we came home from the hospital. And last week, when I wrote about being behind on my laundry, my mom called me up and offered** to come over and do laundry for me. In 13 years, some things haven’t changed!)

**(Even though it was extremely generous of my mom to offer to do my laundry, I didn’t take her up on her offer. Because I would have felt like a big loser. Instead I taught Madeline to do the laundry, complete with step-by-step written instructions taped to the wall, and she got it all caught up and saved us. Why doesn’t that make me feel like a loser? I don’t know.)

2 years ago:

Eleven

1 year ago:

Twelve

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5 Responses to Thirteen

  1. Susan Sophia says:

    “Why doesn’t that make me feel like a loser?” Because it feels good to teach our children something new like that. To watch them mature and take over responsibilities. Yeah!

  2. farm mom says:

    Happy Birthday to one talented and beautiful young lady! No wonder your mom is so proud of you. 🙂 In fact, if you weren’t such a busy girl, I’d ask you to travel my way and come help me out….laundry and all that! 😉 You could sing while you work….

  3. Twinville says:

    Ok, now I want to know the story behind the nickname ‘mad dog’.She sure has grown up and has always been a pretty girl. You know how some girls (like me) started off the ugly duckling and then morphed into something kind of like pretty?Well, not your girl. She’s always been beautiful.And I was grinning from ear to ear when I noticed that she was wearing pink nail polish on her long fingernails while hugging a cow. Not a typical farm girl, eh?And why should you feel like a loser when your Mom or daughter helps you with housework? We Moms deserve a break sometimes. And your Mom and your daughter know that in their heart and they love and appreciate you. How blessed you are! 🙂

  4. CeeCee says:

    Happy Birthday!! She’s beautiful and sounds like she’s got the good sense and brains to go with it.

  5. Becky says:

    Madeline,Happy birthday. I sent an e-mail to you, but it bounced back to me and I just got it, so sorry this is late. Hope you had a good day. Elsie got to hang out at the park and swing, for her it doesn’t get any better than that.

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