It’s hard to believe that I’m actually writing that Miss Madison just promoted to High School! This whole week has been kinda surreal leading up to it. You see I remember my 8th grade graduation as if it were yesterday. It was a big deal~ I remember picking out the dress, planning my hair, writing the speech, that last week of school being all play and very little work, my BFF Gina & I planning our summer. Life changed for me BIG TIME after this occassion. My one & only big sister also graduated that night~ but from high school~ she’d be moving out soon. I was changing schools~ which meant saying goodby to everything familiar to me~ not to mention leaving my BFF (which to this day I sometimes regret). I also remember VERY well what freshman year was like… how boys became a BIG deal~ how all the senior boys ‘liked’ all the freshman girls, like week 1 of school, and now my Miss Madison is going to be one of those girls! Shish!!
When we got pregnant with Madison we’d only been married 5 weeks~ to say we were NOT ready to be parents would be a huge understatement. Matt was in ministry with a very low income salary & I had no income at all, I literally found out the eve of my College graduation. I went through a string of emotions~ one of which was embarassment… I wasn’t ready for my body to change, I didn’t know how to take care of a baby full time, I felt like my friends at the time were thinking we were so irresponsible to be pregnant so young, I was so worried about my education & career~how would I ever build it, not to mention how were we going to afford a little one.
SOOOOOOO to rally my own emotions~ I would “joke” that “well yeah~ but I’ll ‘only’ be 40 when she’s moving on to college..”. Here’s what’s crazy~ we just hit the final steps to that~ college is really RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER now, (not to mention 40 for me YIKES!) and you know what~ I’m not ready for that now either, I can’t imagine our house without the presence of Miss Madison.
Madison has always been strong willed~ Our joke has been that she was born “thinking” she was 13~ and life has gotten signifigantly smoother once she actually turned 13 a few years ago~ as her ability & responsibility could actually match what she believed it should be in her mind! She’s definetly a ‘first born’. Loves to be in charge, tell her brothers & sisters what to do (tell us what to do:). She’s also very nurturing, being their mother in my absence. She’s very much like me in that she is a “rule keeper” ever since she was young she’s the law in our lives & every other kid around. Rules and “the right thing” matter to her. Matt thinks she should be a cop when she grows up.
Some of the ways she is NOT like me at all is… she is very confidant, she doesn’t let friend drama have much power over her life, emotions, or mood. She’s crazy with her sense of style… she purposely tries to “not match” her outfits (which makes me loose my mind being the safe, matcher, non print wearing person that I am) but she pulls it off & looks fantastic. She chooses her friends so wisely. She’s not consumed by what everyone else thinks of her. And finally~ she’s very driven. She has an internal desire to achieve, she studies without being reminded or nagged, she reads… I mean READS all the time. She can finish a 400page book within a few days~ we don’t see or hear from her in that time~ she literally absorbs into the book.
On our way home from her promotion we were chatting about her last middle school years. I told her I was proud of her for her good grades & diligence to do well all on her own…. to which she replies to me “mom, I didn’t study the way I should have, I settled for studying enough to get ‘just good enough’ grades & I can do better”. ”WOW” I said in response, “most kids have this line of thining their senior year Madi, how great for you that your are the wiser now as you are beginning the years where your grades actually matter~ it’s sooooo not tooo late”.
So proud of our girl. So blessed God chose me to be her mom.
~Tammy
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