The past two months for me have been a little similar to bull riding. I was a nervous wreck waiting, but knew I would have to saddle that bull anyways. I did get tossed around a little and did my best to hang on for eight seconds. Good news, not only did I hang on for eight seconds, I had a perfect dismount.
My eight seconds are up, I can hang my hat for the summer because today is my last day at work (until September). To celebrate, Miss Maddie decided dress up as a cowgirl and hang out with the most awesome ranch hands ever. Here’s the scoop.
I love being with my family, I am confident that thier ooos and awws are real. I don’t sit, wondering if they catch all the little details that I do. I watch them embrace Maddox for who she is and all that she will be. I watch them cheer her on, push her hard, all the while having a pure and innocent love for her. I am very calm, comforted, and safe when I am with my family and this typically makes venturing to socialize with those beyond my family very difficult.
Until today.
Maddie inherited another family. A family that is not related to her. A family that did not have to love her but made a personal choice to love her. When I walk into this house with Maddie, I feel like she is a glowing jewel. Everyone takes turns marveling at her smiles and trying to make her giggle. They argue for holding time, draw straws for dirty diapers, and wait in line to feed her. I can’t express how beautiful, sincere, and compassionate this family is. I think we keep getting luckier and luckier, thank you.
I often sit and worry about junior high and high school. Will Maddox’s maturity level not rise to the occasion? Will her ‘normal’ friends that she has grown up with her abandon her with peer pressure? After today, I am a little more comforted and a little less worried.
Scott and I’s friends are raising some exceptionally loving and charing children, are teaching them right from wrong, and I am pretty confident that Callie, Amaya, Addison, Kylie, Grady, Hannah, Gavin, and Jack will have Maddie’s back, today, and more importantly, 10 years from today.
And this means the world to me.