Tomorrow, our third child becomes a teen. (If you're counting, that makes three teens in one home!) Rebekah is a highly intelligent, witty, practical, logical person and creative writer. Yep...She's my kid. Although her voracious reading more accurately reflects her father. I can't wait to see how God grows her over the next few years. In the meantime, I have to continually remind myself "She's only______.(insert age)" And I've had to do this since she was 10.
That's the age when she started looking, acting and logically processing like a child almost two times her age. That is not an exaggeration. She, more than any of our other children, is fiercely independent, seemingly comfortable in her own skin and refuses to adapt her choices or tastes to the people around her. She is not a people pleaser. I take no credit for that one. It is God-given because neither Dale nor myself could make the same claim.
But she also loves to have fun. She will play any game, with any one, at any time. I'll warn you though, don't play Scrabble with her unless you want to lose. Yes, she's the kid who looks up words on dictionary.com for fun. She's also been writing a book for over a year now and when I read it, I'm amazed at the level of maturity her writing possesses.
The road trip we're taking is in honor of her big day tomorrow. When our oldest reached this milestone almost five years ago, we had more money available to us, so she and I did something she loved. We flew to Disney World and spent a few days of just she and I bonding together. It was an idea I felt was given me by the Holy Spirit and it became for me a pivotal time of healing and growth in my relationship with her up to that point.
Well...when you have four kids...you know they will all want things to be "fair". Problem was, when Noah's day came around two years ago we were at our financially lowest point. Bless his heart though...he didn't want Disney....he wanted Skillet. Kings Island's Spirit Song festival to be exact. Skillet was one headline group, so he and Dale (with the help of some tax money) were able to spend two days bonding over roller coasters and Christian music. They still love both and I am blessed to sit back and watch as two men, who sometimes don't know what to say to each other can always find common ground around Skillet and groups like them.
Which now leads us to Bekah. When you're the third child, it's rare that you get to do something that the others haven't. I'm not sure that over 30 hours alone in a rental car with your mom ranks high on her list, but when you're the one that gets most overlooked, that's the part I will enjoy the most. We're going to Sea World one day and Cocoa Beach another (both Barthauer family firsts) and she and I are meeting our dear friends Della and Jennifer Miller at Downtown Disney too. She chose the Millers over a day at Magic Kingdom! That's how much loyal relationship means to Bekah.
We've been saving my money from babysitting all summer and now that it's here, we're both uber-excited. But while we're having fun and drinking Starbucks for the long drive and having breakfast with Lilo and Stitch, without any prior agenda as to what we'll discuss, I know God will use this as a foundational time for us to build upon for the sometimes turbulent teen years ahead.
When I made this journey with Abbey, I realized that many mothers in this world would be preparing their 13 year old daughters for marriage. I look at these right-of-passage trips as very similar. I may not be grooming them for a man, but they are now heading toward adulthood and I delight in the blessing of preparing them for their Groom who will always love them with a greater love than I could ever imagine.
That's the age when she started looking, acting and logically processing like a child almost two times her age. That is not an exaggeration. She, more than any of our other children, is fiercely independent, seemingly comfortable in her own skin and refuses to adapt her choices or tastes to the people around her. She is not a people pleaser. I take no credit for that one. It is God-given because neither Dale nor myself could make the same claim.
But she also loves to have fun. She will play any game, with any one, at any time. I'll warn you though, don't play Scrabble with her unless you want to lose. Yes, she's the kid who looks up words on dictionary.com for fun. She's also been writing a book for over a year now and when I read it, I'm amazed at the level of maturity her writing possesses.
The road trip we're taking is in honor of her big day tomorrow. When our oldest reached this milestone almost five years ago, we had more money available to us, so she and I did something she loved. We flew to Disney World and spent a few days of just she and I bonding together. It was an idea I felt was given me by the Holy Spirit and it became for me a pivotal time of healing and growth in my relationship with her up to that point.
Well...when you have four kids...you know they will all want things to be "fair". Problem was, when Noah's day came around two years ago we were at our financially lowest point. Bless his heart though...he didn't want Disney....he wanted Skillet. Kings Island's Spirit Song festival to be exact. Skillet was one headline group, so he and Dale (with the help of some tax money) were able to spend two days bonding over roller coasters and Christian music. They still love both and I am blessed to sit back and watch as two men, who sometimes don't know what to say to each other can always find common ground around Skillet and groups like them.
Which now leads us to Bekah. When you're the third child, it's rare that you get to do something that the others haven't. I'm not sure that over 30 hours alone in a rental car with your mom ranks high on her list, but when you're the one that gets most overlooked, that's the part I will enjoy the most. We're going to Sea World one day and Cocoa Beach another (both Barthauer family firsts) and she and I are meeting our dear friends Della and Jennifer Miller at Downtown Disney too. She chose the Millers over a day at Magic Kingdom! That's how much loyal relationship means to Bekah.
We've been saving my money from babysitting all summer and now that it's here, we're both uber-excited. But while we're having fun and drinking Starbucks for the long drive and having breakfast with Lilo and Stitch, without any prior agenda as to what we'll discuss, I know God will use this as a foundational time for us to build upon for the sometimes turbulent teen years ahead.
When I made this journey with Abbey, I realized that many mothers in this world would be preparing their 13 year old daughters for marriage. I look at these right-of-passage trips as very similar. I may not be grooming them for a man, but they are now heading toward adulthood and I delight in the blessing of preparing them for their Groom who will always love them with a greater love than I could ever imagine.
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