The Middle

Our Amelia is nine today.

This means that she is halfway through living in our house.

In nine more years, our sweet middle child will be getting ready to head off to college. She will have figured out whether or not she really wants to be an optometrist or play soccer or sing and dance on Broadway or open up her art studio.

This kid has a variety of dreams.

It seems strange that our middle is halfway through her time under our roof, because I feel like we are so deep in the weeds, my friends.
Deep.
Life right now is carting non-drivers to all lessons and camps and rehearsals. Loading campers and trailers for cattle shows and wrangling little people as we wrestle with groceries in two carts. I feel like we may never end the chaos and the noise and the schedules, but realizing that the middle is halfway to "adulting" makes it feel really weird.

You see, Amelia is our steady. She is rarely smarty. Rarely upset. Rarely over-the-top in anything other than sunshine. She brings a balance that shifts when she's not around. She is helpful and kind, even though her littlest siblings would like her to not try to cart them around too much. She is trying desperately to be a big girl, scouring Pinterest for outfit ideas for her big trip to Washington, DC with Grandma and Grandpa, even though I still catch her singing her heart out as she assembles one Lego house after another. She is responsible and helpful, but has been known to try to take her bunny down the curly slide, just to "see if she likes it."

Isn't this what the middle child is supposed to be? One foot in the older kid camp, the other planted in the little kid camp.
And thank heavens for that.
In a world where time seems to fly; kids seem to grow up too fast; life is just hectic, Amelia is our anecdote. She makes us laugh, brings us just pure joy with her spark and spunk.

Amelia, thank you for being the middle. You may feel sometime that being in the middle is hard, but you are right where you're supposed to be. You remind us to not take ourselves too seriously. You never fail to ask a question or want to be a part of the conversation. I love that you want to be a part of it all, whatever "it" is!

Happy birthday to my sweet girl. I am so thankful to have been chosen to be your mama, thankful that you're my middle.