School's Out For The Summer

Today is the last day of Kindergarten for Bodie and the last day of second grade for Brayden.  How did that happen?   I swear Brayden was just starting preschool!  I know every mom says that, but I am really feeling it.  I can't believe my baby is going into first grade.  I have tried very hard to talk him into repeating Kindergarten, but as much as he enjoyed it he isn't interested. So I guess time moves on despite our best efforts.  I always love the ages my boys are and I love watching them become more independent, but I just wish they could stay little for awhile longer.  and somehow the arrival of summer, as much as we yearn for it, reminds us that another year has passed and my babies are another year closer to being grown.  In fact, now that they are 1st and 3rd graders, can I even call them babies anymore?  I know that they will let me, but it hardly fits the big boys that they have become.  I am so proud!  But I still miss those tiny baby boys who needed mommy to do everything for them.  Sigh...

Busier Than Ever

This Busy boys mama has been busier than ever this week.  I had felt a pull on my heart for a long time that I finally listened to (yes God, I hear you... I'm BUSY)   1 year later   (Oh, God... is that you again?  You still want me?  But I have to do these other things first...)  you know how we all get.  SO finally I jumped.  Someone came to our church on the Sanctity of Human Life weekend to talk about their Crisis Pregnancy center and the ministry it does there, and I felt the pull on my heart again.  Only this time  I didn't have 52 other things jump into my mind that I "should" do instead.  I turned to Eric and told him I still felt like I was supposed to do that, so he told me to go talk to the lady after service.  The rest, as they say, is history.  I've spent all week in training and it felt great. (ok, not all great.  Some of it was sad and I cried.)  But I could feel that this was it.  I was supposed to be there.   I will officially start "shadowing" on Tuesday, which means I'll get to see how all of the stuff I've learned gets used with real clients.  I know God has some "Divine Appointments" for me, and I'm thrilled.  I am positive I will not be bored!  And I will be spreading God's love in a very cool way.  I am scared and excited at once, like the first day of school!  Yay!

New Life

What do you do when you get the life you always wanted, only to discover you don't know what to do with it? I loved being a stay at home mom when my kids were little.  It was what I always wanted to do.  Then I had to go back to work and my heart broke when I put them in daycare... not that it wasn't a wonderful daycare, but it wasn't me.  Now I'm home again and they are in school.  I love picking them up and being here with them in the afternoon, but I am by nature a social person.  I do like the sleeping part, I won't lie.  Most days I take the boys to school and then come home and go back to bed.  Or I do some cleaning and then take a nap.  But I miss people.  I miss doing stuff.  I mean, I can go do stuff by myself, but that gets old.  And really, what is there to do besides run errands?  I guess I'm going to have to go ahead and start doing some work... I'm bored with being here alone.  Sigh.  I'm so disappointed :-).  Maybe if I start subbing a few days a week I'll feel better.

Endings

Last night was the Spring Fling at WMS.  It was a bittersweet night for me.  On one hand, I was able to watch Bodie's class sing their ADORABLE songs.  They were just the cutest things ever.  For me as a mom it was huge because up until this year he has refused to sing at all.  When it was time for any type of program I would show up with my camera and video camera, hoping to catch that one moment that he would decide to FINALLY sing one little song, but not my Bodie.  He would stand there with his class and clam up.  Or in some more creative moments when he was really little he would roll on the floor in front of the group singing.  Either way, there were no sounds coming out of him.  Leading up to this performance he practiced his songs for me every day, especially the "50 Fantastic states".  I guess at 5 he has decided he is ready.  I made sure I was right up from last night, and he sang every single song!!!  I could not have been more proud!  After the singing they did the sweet little ceremony where they walked over the bridge to head to the next class or phase of life.  Since we are moving Bodie got to walk over the bridge.  He was a little upset because he was almost forgotten (it was just a little confusing), so he looks a little grumpy in his pictures, but once I got his brother up on the bridge with him he was happier.  For me it was one of those happy/sad moments.  I am so proud of everything he has done, but now my baby is heading to Kindergarten.  How did that happen?  I knew that going back to work would be hard and he would be this old when I finished, but now that we are here it seems like I blinked and my baby has turned into this amazing little boy.  And Brayden... He was just in preschool when we got here and now he is going into second grade!  I'm not sad that we came to Ruston.  I'm so proud of Eric for what he has accomplished, and in the long run he has done amazing things for our family that these few years that I worked will be well worth the sacrifices we've made.  But every once in awhile, as I look at these two young boys we are raising, I miss those babies that they were when we first moved here.  I miss those tiny boys.  I guess that is normal for a mama :-)  I will probably say the same thing when they move on to Junior High and High School, even though I will not be working then.  I just want to freeze these sweet memories in time so that I can revisit them whenever I want.  sigh... My beautiful boys....

    On another note we were so sad last night that sweet Harper is still in the hospital and was unable to be there with us to take her turn walking across the bridge.  Bodie and Harper have been together since we moved here and they were both a year old.  It was just... incomplete without her there.  If you are reading this please continue to pray for her.  She has been sick so long now that I know she and her parents are getting restless with the need to be well.  We love her and miss her... and we won't stop praying until she is HEALED and HOME. Thank you for honoring this request.  I know her family appreciates it. If you aren't already, you can follow her progress on her mom's blog Fingerprints. 

Growing Pains

So when I started this I had the best of intentions of writing every day.  You can see how well that is working out for me.  But that's ok, because I guess you do what you can do. 
              This has been an interesting week.  I guess you could say I am experiencing some "growing pains".  I know God has us go through things for a reason, and sometimes small things can seems overblown.  I tend to do that a lot... I focus on things that seem small to others way more than I need to or probably should.  It's just how I'm built.  Lately I have been feeling really out of place.  I don't know if it's because I'm getting ready to move and I'm beginning that seperation process, or if I just needed that reminder that I'M DIFFERENT.  When faced with people who have extremely different views than me on things normally I just keep my mouth shut because "I am not from here" and I know that in a lot of ways my different ideas are just not welcome.  Yet every once in awhile these things bother me until I say something, and then I perseverate on whether or not I upset the person I said something to, when really I should be more focused on the fact that I finally pointed out to them that they have been oblivious to the fact that they have been offending me, sometimes for months, by just assuming that everyone has the same opinion as them.  I realize that a lot of my liberal views are not PC in the South.  I get it.  And yet it is a pert of who I am.  It is part of what makes me, well, me!  and if someone doesn't like me because of that, then really doesn't that mean that they don't like me?  And shouldn't I be ok with that instead of worrying so much about whether or not someone is still going to be my friend?  I should be secure enough in myself to just put it out there and say, "Yes, I realize you won't agree with this.  I'm ok with that.  I'm not trying to say you are wrong.  I'm not trying to say I am right.  I'm just trying to show you more of who I really am."  At the end of the day, if we are really friends, isn't that ok?

Beginnings

I spend a lot of time creating blog posts in my head.  My friend Jaymi recently compared it to the voice-overs on the Wonder Years TV show, and I think that is an apt description.  Up to this point I have limited myself to comments posted on friends (as well as strangers whose blogs I follow so often that I imagine that we are friends) blogs.  However today I was overcome with the desire to make my own voice heard.  I keep thinking that I have something to say.  I'm not sure what that is... or what it will be.  Maybe I will be amusing... maybe I will be a voice for the socially underprivileged... but I doubt it. It seems like I must have some relevance somewhere inside my head. 
   There have been so many things going on lately... watching a friend with a gravely ill daughter made me so appreciative for my boys' health.  I cried as I waited for word of her condition, and I cried again as she was finally able to bring that precious girl home.
    I had the best Mother's Day.  My boys were the sweetest.  Although it CRACKED ME UP when I picked Brayden up from the Learning Center at Church.  During first service he was the only kid in his class so they were making lots of tissue paper flowers for Mother's Day, and then I guess he got bored with that so they started making different crafts with the pipe cleaners... so I got a beautiful bouquet of tissue paper flowers... and a pair of handcuffs.  I just laughed and laughed.  Handcuffs?  Because nothing says I love my Mommy like handcuffs!!  OR he thought I was going to be very naughty...  either way it was ADORABLE!!!!  It goes down as one of my favorite things ever.  Bodie got me another neck pillow for the car.  Should I take that as a sign that I can't stay awake in the car?  Ok, I'll admit it; I can't stay awake in the car.  And apparently my children have noticed, because Bodie has now given me 3 neck pillows.  But I love them and I love him. 
    Maybe this is rambling, and maybe it sounded better in my head.  But it is a beginning.  Everyone has to start somewhere, and this is my somewhere.  Welcome.  I hope you enjoy the crazy ride that is my life.