Sunday, August 18, 2013

Starting School

We cannot possibly be on the eve of another school year starting.  Wasn't it just a couple of weeks ago that we celebrated the end of school with our friends at Air Walk? Wasn't it just a little bit ago that we were at Smith Lake with our family or watching fireworks with our neighbors? Wasn't it not too long ago that we were staying up late watching movies and eating popcorn? Yeah well, that probably was just a couple of days ago, ha ha.  Seriously, why does it have to go by so fast?

I'm not ready for other folks to spend more waking hours with my children than I do.  And I don't even want to talk about Cooper...with football, he won't be home until around 6:00pm each day...that's weird for us.  We're all enjoying it, it's just weird him not coming home from school at 3:00 like he always has.  

My baby will be starting Kindergarten.  It's not as I had envisioned over 5 years ago as I dreamed of days like this while she still kicked about inside of me...healthy and growing.  I pull up after all the other children have been let out, get her wheelchair out and carefully place her in it.  I will adjust her hair and and her clothes, hang her bags on the back and wheel her into school.  She won't run or skip in with her friends, she won't hug and kiss me or wave goodbye.

Sophie Kate will be welcomed into her new classroom.  She will be loved and cared for, she will be valued and respected.  She will be talked to, touched and doted on. She will be part of a class and she will be taught just in a different way.  I will hug and kiss her and I will hold her hand and touch her face as I say goodbye to her.  It's not as I had envisioned but it's our reality and I choose gratitude over bitterness, happiness over sadness and love over anger.

I will send off a 7th grader, a 5th grader, a 2nd grader and a Kindergartner.  I pray protection over those sweet hearts and faces that I love so dearly.  I will miss sleeping in, I will miss us staying on our pjs for longer than we should, I will miss breakfast being served so late that we might as well call it lunch, mostly I'll just miss them...their voices, their laughter, our conversations and the smiles.  We will just have to be much more intentional in our time with them...more dinners around the table and less TV, more conversation and less video games, more time with them and less time on our phones.  

Can't wait to get my hands on them at the end of the day and hear about all the first day of school fun!

Proverbs 16:21 "Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails."

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