...First Day of School...
There is a sweet sadness that fills my soul every year on this day...
I love my kids with all my heart and soul! Since God has blessed us with the ability for me to stay at home with them, I have found that they are my life...they are my reason for getting up when I don't feel like it, my drive to find purpose in situations that seem hopeless, my laughter when my heart is full of sorrow and my love when the world seems cold. God uses them all so often to teach me simple lessons and hard truths.
It can take a LOT for a mom (working or not) to keep from allowing her kids to define her. I spent a lot of time being very disappointed in who I was before I realized that letting a person dictate who you are is like trying to dress your reflection in a mirror: thier opinion is important, but it is simply that ~ an opinion...just as your reflection is a picture of what you look like, but it isn't really you. There can be distortions in the glass that make you look wider (which is a flaw that I have decided that all of our mirrors have...) or funky lighting in the room that make you look deathly pale... But those "faults" aren't yours and you can't fix up the reflection itself as it isn't reality...a mirror is meant to give you a general idea, but it shouldn't define you. Opinions are good ideas to look at to gauge how things are going...but they aren't in and of themselves the reality of who you are.
That being said...I find great joy in knowing that our kids enjoy sharing thier hearts with us. As my husband and I left to take them all to school this morning, there was excitement and nervousness conveyed in the chatter from the backseats, which brought up a few misty eyes in the front ones...but, even so, the school year for 2009-2010 is off and running!!
Our Third Grader
who sang "It's the best day ever" on the drive
The "big man on campus" 6th Grader
who showered, deo'd, cologne'd and did his own hair!!
Our Junior High Girlies
the two on the left are newbie 7th graders with no clue where to go while the 8th grade pro on the right is too cool to tell them!!
Now that they are gone, I get to focus on simple pleasures... Rooms that stay clean for more than 5 minutes, no more fighting over how long so-n-so has had the remote or the PlayStation, no more "I'm bored so I am going to bother you for awhile"...well, no more until at least Christmas break!
But...the most important thing I have to say about the first day of school is a line from the Huxtable's on the Cosby Show: Cliff walks into the bedroom where Claire is sleeping and says "Honey, get up! It's the first day of school!" Claire sits straight up with a beaming smile and exclaims "The first day of school??? We get the house back?!?!?" *smile*
Looking up as always...
~Bina~
2 comments:
Beautiful kids!! I am with you on being defined by our kids, its hard not to do that... definately something I still struggle deeply with. (It's week 2 of school and I am ready for one of them to be home sick so I have someone to take care of! And then I go for lunch alone and forget about them! ;) )
Thank you for the compliment on my kidlets...I think that but usually believe myself partial! :) I can tell just from your blogs that you are a great mama - that you love your babies so much. I pray they realize just what a blessing they have in a mom that prays!! Huggles to you (...and I still think you prettier than other gals!)
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