1st Day of Preschool

Today was Kale's first day of preschool.  

 After a weekend away celebrating a family wedding and then a very rough thunderstorm night, I was wondering how tolerable he would be of something new, but he took it all in stride.

 I've been told that mothering is not about letting go but about letting go a great number of times.  Today wasn't the first for me, but it was a big one.

 We took lots of pictures, he asked me to stay and play for awhile, and had to give me a series of hugs and kisses before I could go.

 Kale with his teacher Mrs. Blough.

 Kale with Mrs. Williams, the para in the room.

 There are 14 total  kiddos in his class as well as a classroom fish, "Blueberry."

 This was a sign that Kale was in the right classroom!

When I picked him up he said, "I missed you, Mama, but you are always in my heart."  You too, bud, you too.

A Weed Among the Flowers

I was at a friend's house recently and on her porch she had a beautiful display of "flowers" in several small glass jars.  I commented how beautiful they were and she laughed, squeezed my arm and said, "I collected those weeds out of a ditch on a drive home yesterday."  Did you catch that?  Weeds.

Later that afternoon when the boys were napping, I went a few feet up the gravel road alongside our home and cut a few of my own weeds and assembled them into my own glass jars.

 Have you ever felt like a weed among the flowers, friends?  You go on a play date and the other kids are way more well mannered than your own.  You visit a friends home and she decorates and cleans so much better than you.  You go to a potluck and want to hide your dessert because next to the others, it just doesn't measure up.  You meant not to think ill thoughts of that woman you keep seeing at the grocery store that looks like she just crawled out of bed and didn't give personal hygiene a thought.  Weeds.

But you know what?  God even makes weeds beautiful.  Weeds.  We are imperfect people living in a sinful world.  We think imperfect thoughts, do imperfect things, and struggle to stretch out for the sunrise and drink in the goodness of God's glorious riches and live.  Truly live.

The next opportunity you get, take a long stroll down a gravel road and look and see the beautiful weeds.  And remember, you were created in God's image.  He wants you to flourish like a flower.

The Season of Summer

I have a love-hate relationship with summer.  Amazing lightning bugs to end the day after the mosquito bites have gotten big, red, and itchy.  Plump, tasty garden produce after hours of toil to get rid of the pesky weeds.  Happy, sweaty, sandy boys who need baths every night.  Love-hate.

This season that is sandwiched between spring and fall.  This season that often drags on in its dog days or seems to fast forward when the temps dip keeping us out of the pool.  This season that hosts my birthday and adds another wrinkle to my face.  Love-hate.

When I was a kid, I loved summer; lived for summer.  School was out, my feet were on the softball diamond, our family enjoyed fires on our patio watching the stars above.  Not a care in the world.  Now, I carry sweaty boys who skin their knees, endure whining when it's time to leave the pool, skip the campfire most nights because I'm too tired to watch the stars.  Love-hate.

As a mom of young kids I feel my soul is in the season of summer.  Many days feel stagnant and humid and nothing seems to want to grow.  Days of no breeze and only thunderclouds in the distance.  Days when the mosquito is feasting.  But amidst these barren, dry days are days of refreshment.  Days of rain and cool breezes and icy lemonade in a glass that runneth over.  Love-hate.

How thankful I am that just as with any season, this season too shall pass.  And that in the dead of winter I'll long for summer once again.