Meet mini me. We don’t look much alike, but I’m afraid our insides are eerily the same. From her flashes of uncontrollable anger, to her love of reading, to her deep need to please, to her love of Mexican food, to the way she feels called upon to always be in charge of her little sister, to the dichotomy of wanting to look prissy but still play in the mud…I get her. I get her so much, that I get aggravated at all the little things I want to correct in myself 🙂 Then, I love her like a piece of my own heart that was plucked out to walk beside me through life. We’re already friends. We already fight and get our feelings hurt like sisters. Some days I truly wonder who’s in charge around here…and so does she.
While there are so many similarities, there are some differences too. They fascinate, and honestly, scare me…make me wonder if I’ll ever be adequate enough to cultivate her sparkling little mind like she deserves. She loves nature and longs to take care of it. From making plants grow, to seeing beauty in every little rock and leaf she passes, to going into raptures of joy over finding a roly poly that she vows to care for “for always.” She asks questions, good questions, that I can’t answer. She prays prayers that make me cry for her absolute faith and deep understanding of our God. She understands language…and how to use it to get what she wants 🙂 I’m scared y’all!
The CAKE! Which deserves a blog all its own! I have never seen such a beautiful birthday cake before…except for the fact that they thought her name was Jace instead of Pace 🙂
Moogie, the one who bought The Cake
And Popon, the one who paid for it 🙂
The presents. Sorry Ashley didn’t like this present and Josh looks like he just came out of a tree stand. Oh wait, he did.
Thank you boys, for demonstrating just how to use these phones.
Sadly, Dapples needed one more lesson 🙂
Whenever the shackles of resident’s life, loosen enough that Jeremiah can slide into his place at our dinner table, we then begin the process of absorbing each other’s day. There’s comfort in that. Comfort in the effort of recreating all the insignificant incidences that tied new knots in my neck, or strengthened the ones that were already there. I can try to huff, even more than I necessarily felt, over the “smart talk” I received from Pace. I can use all my dramatic faculties to paint the picture of the chaos that ensued after Mary Aplin discovered she could remove her poopy diaper herself. I can monotonously list all the chores I performed again this day, which I watched unravel as soon as they were completed…just gearing up for me to do them again tomorrow. I can talk about all these things, and he can nod his head and even open his eyes widely as though he understands…but he doesn’t, not really. Just as I don’t really understand all the pressures that call him in early and hold him there late. We try, for each other, but God has granted us two differing roles and asked that we sympathize with, but not necessarily understand, the other. Partly, I believe, because the need for understanding stems from the root of pride. And He’s always trying to dig that up, isn’t He.
We had a big weekend in Dothan…and I forgot my camera 🙁 Fortunately, we have some cell phone pictures and stolen facebook shots to somewhat make up for the loss.
Friday night, we camped out. WE, as in Jeremiah, Pace, Mary Aplin, Josh (his brother), Jay (his Dad), Linda (his Mom) and me. Oh doesn’t that sound like such sweet fun! You’re all thinking. No. You would be wrong. Hysterically funny and miserable, yes. Fun, not so much. The boys came by canoe to the campsite (the Maddox family can never just do anything simply :)) while we girls came by car with the equipment. Now, in true Maddox form we were unorganized and late, which meant that we were pulling onto the camp land just AFTER sunset–and still had tents to set up, firewood to gather, and dinner to prepare. As though I wasn’t worried enough about our tardiness, we got STUCK IN A MUDHOLE IN MY TAHOE. Now, I enjoyed my small share of mudding in high school, but I never DROVE the TRUCK, and I certainly didn’t do it with babies strapped in carseats in the backseat. Jeremiah finally hiked over to rescue us (after 30 minutes of forward and reverse with mud all over the outside AND inside of my car), and I discovered that I did not, indeed, know how to put my car in four wheel drive 🙂 And I thought I was country.
Considering our start, things went pretty well…until 1:30 in the morning when the fire had burned out and the FOUR sleeping bags we had between SEVEN people (2 of which were small children whose Mother was in a state of panic all night about whether or not they were going to freeze to death) became glaringly sparse. A groan was uttered from our tent (Jeremiah), followed by a snicker from just outside on the bare ground (Josh), followed by loud cackling from tent 2 (Linda), and finally all of us were laughing so hysterically at our misery and isolation that we woke up Dapples (the sour puss) who cried good and loud for us all. I’ll leave you with the picture of Jeremiah and his Dad laying on damp sand and spooning opposite sides of the fire for the remainder of the night. Whew! Don’t you wish you’d come along?!
Ashley came the next morning and tried to help us clean the deep grimy damage we had done to ourselves.
And then we attempted to move on from our mistakes and begin celebrating our two big birthdays! Pace turned four (not 5, we had to learn the proper way to represent her new age) on Saturday.
And we decided to let Popon celebrate too, since his birthday was Monday. 
We were having the dual party Saturday night, BUT we had a friend’s party to attend Saturday morning. I talked to Pace for a long time about how she was, under no circumstances, to tell people that it was her birthday. There would be no fit pitching over wanting to open presents, or blow out the candles…you get the idea. However, it turned out I was doing the talking to the wrong sister:
Pace was an angel. Dapples….umm, not so much. We left early. (I borrowed Dad’s camera to take pictures of Pace’s cake/party, and I’ll give her a post all her own when I get those shots from him)
Sunday, I switched over and started celebrating this girl 🙂
Caroline had her first wedding shower, in Auburn! (Kerie, John David’s sister, took these PHENOMENAL engagement pictures of Caroline and Riley)
I LOVE getting to be with all my sisters at one time! There’s nothing quite like that sisterly dynamic 🙂
We officially began our duties, of serving at Caroline’s feet 🙂
The shower was lots of fun and she got some great gifts to help she and Riley start their new little life. I enjoyed getting to meet (or re-visit with) her college friends…although it did become quite apparent that that feeling in my heart–the one that says I just left college a year or two ago–was not true. Not true in the least. I felt like those alums that used to come in the chapter room and say, “What’s your last name? Ohhh, your Mama was in the pledge class below me…” Except I was inserting “sister” instead of “mama.”
Anywho, it’s ok. I know it won’t be long before I’m ushering these two little legacies onto campus 🙂 (Thanks Aunt Keke for our shirts! We’re brain-washing them early.)