Being the youngest means always trying to keep up. Your sisters are bigger than you. They are faster than you. Their books and tv shows are a challenge to understand. Their games are tough to follow. But…no self-respecting little sister is willing to be left behind.
Patrice is no different. She tries hard, she pushes herself, she works at it. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. When it all falls together, there are lots of smiles. When it is just beyond your reach, there might be tears.
My little girl works so hard to be able to keep up with her sisters. She does an amazing job. She finds tasks that she wants to work at and does it with all her heart. She loves the monkey bars, she does great on her rollerblades and scooter.
She is always working on the next thing. And some of those things are hard. Her most recent thing to tackle is playing cards, Spoons to be exact. The girls were introduced to it on Christmas last week. She is doing great hanging in there with the big girls, and the grown ups too!! We played it tonight as a family. We chose to do numbers to make up 2017 instead of the word spoons. Sue was pushed out first, then Caitlyn, next Mommy, so it was just her and daddy left. They both had 201–it was down to just one hand, and daddy got the four of a kind first–he was the winner. We told her she had done a great job, but her little face got bright red as she fought to control her emotions. She escaped to her room just as soon as we stopped talking to her. She went in, gathered her feelings and started quietly playing with a toy until she was ready to come out.
She stepped away to collect herself. She has been doing that since she was about 18 months old. You rarely, if ever, see her throw a fit. She has always chosen to go to her room and calm herself rather than explode with anger, sadness, or frustration in front of a crowd. She will come and cuddle with me sometimes when she is sad, but more often than not, I go seek her out to make sure she is okay after she has escaped to her room.
Honestly, her reaction is an enigma to me. I am a yeller. My emotions come out fast and furious. Every emotion I ever feel is written all over my face. It is very, very rare that I think to step away before it is too late. Actually, my girls know if mama steps away, they better just give me space because I am trying really hard to react well.
And yet, I have this little girl that is so in control of her emotions and so wise in how to handle them. I marvel at her and her wisdom and I truly aspire to be just a little bit more like this little girl the Lord has given me.
I had to provide info on place of employment, references, vet information–the whole bit. I submitted it and we were approved about 20 minutes later!!! Daddy and I got pretty excited as we kept our secret. I told the girls we had to go shopping for a few puppy items to donate to an animal shelter since we didn’t have our own dog.
