Tonight he fell asleep by himself.
I remember days that feel like forever ago and yesterday all at once, when I spent every evening trapped beneath a small demanding body who only found comfort in his mother's arms. I prayed hard and steady those nights that I wouldn't fall asleep with him so I could get up and do something, anything other than rock, snuggle, rock. Rock, snuggle, rock. Sleep. Most nights, I would fall asleep and wake in the middle of the night, cranky that I'd wasted whatever free time I could have enjoyed.
He's five and a half now, and I don't have any idea where all those long nights went; I just know that they've all rolled into short years where his pants just have kept getting shorter and shorter even though they've stayed the same size.
He grows, my first baby, and I grow, and we grow
and I like who we're all becoming
but part of my heart twinges for the baby I once held.
Before I left the room tonight, I laid next to him as he prayed, snuggled beneath his warm arm draped over my stomach, waited for him to cue me for my turn to pray. And when I prayed tonight, I prayed thanksgiving for the blessings ... and silently I pleaded for the time to linger long in these moments where I was still snuggling an ever-growing boy.
When his breathing slowed into sleep breaths, his little brother also fast asleep on my other side, I began to unbind myself from blankets. But he he stirred and asked where I was going.
I said I was going to read my Bible and pray.
"Will you be back in a little bit?"
Absolutely, I promised.
Five minutes later my promised lured me back to that oldest boy of mine, and I thought if he wanted me with him right then that I would be there, so I creeped back into his room ... and found him fast asleep.
I placed my lips on his forehead for a kiss and he mumbled, "I'm OK, mom; you can go and pray and read your Bible."
I whispered my love to him.
"I love you, too, mom."
And I can't help but to think how the desperate prayers I uttered all those nights I spent pleading that I would get something more done than rock, snuggle, rock, sleep have been answered.
On those nights, I didn't just lay down with my boy and fall asleep. No. On those nights, I laid down foundations of love.
Showing posts with label G.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label G.. Show all posts
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Bigger Picture Moment: Like Me
I barely recognize his face uninterrupted these days.
He's letting his hair grow God knows how long, and his thick dark brown bangs sweep over his forehead and brush his eyelashes and cover his eyebrows.
Also, he's five, and he's intent on making decisions, and who am I to tell him his hair will never look like the curly mop Anniken sports no matter how long it grows?
So I don't.
I do instead what my heart says mothers should do, ignoring what my head insists:
I brush his bangs to the side of his face, I kiss slight the soft skin beneath and I ask him to tell me again about what he's thinking as we venture off to Mommy Night at school.
To my surprise, he wants to snap pictures of us together, and to my surprise, he won't sing the Mom song this year because it's too silly; he says he just wants to snuggle me instead.
He is so himself and so like me altogether that sometimes I cannot see where I start and he begins and how we ever merged from two in one to two in two.
Because it still seems we are very much one in the same.
He's letting his hair grow God knows how long, and his thick dark brown bangs sweep over his forehead and brush his eyelashes and cover his eyebrows.
Also, he's five, and he's intent on making decisions, and who am I to tell him his hair will never look like the curly mop Anniken sports no matter how long it grows?
So I don't.
I do instead what my heart says mothers should do, ignoring what my head insists:
I brush his bangs to the side of his face, I kiss slight the soft skin beneath and I ask him to tell me again about what he's thinking as we venture off to Mommy Night at school.
To my surprise, he wants to snap pictures of us together, and to my surprise, he won't sing the Mom song this year because it's too silly; he says he just wants to snuggle me instead.
He is so himself and so like me altogether that sometimes I cannot see where I start and he begins and how we ever merged from two in one to two in two.
Because it still seems we are very much one in the same.
 |
| Link at Jade's today! |
Friday, October 12, 2012
Five-Minute Friday: Race
He stands solemnly, stills his growing body, a few paces ahead of me, traces of his breath dancing in the cool October dusk as he deeply exhales a long sigh.
"Oh, mommy," he begins, "All of my favorite leaves are almost gone."
Two straights days of swooping, sweeping strong winds have wrestled the them in all of the bursts of colorful glory from tree branches, sent them rushing down the street and crashing into open stretches of prairie.
"Why does it have to go so fast?" he laments, standing taller, broader shouldered than he was even just a few weeks ago when the green first gave way to deep orange and sunset red. "I wish the leaves would stay a little longer ... they're so pretty like this."
I nod, resisting the urge to inform him that seasons changing are inevitable, that sometimes you blink and you miss the leaves lingering bright and gloriously from the trees at the peak of fall, only catching glimpses of their beauty as they run wildly off into the distance.
We stand together, staring at barren branches, sorry to have not stood here still for longer just a few days prior. I switch my gaze to his face, sleeker and defined more monthly by sharper curves, baby fat having mostly dripped away.
And I linger long in the blazing glory of five
because soon I'll be standing here catching tiny bursts of color racing down the streets.
"Oh, mommy," he begins, "All of my favorite leaves are almost gone."
Two straights days of swooping, sweeping strong winds have wrestled the them in all of the bursts of colorful glory from tree branches, sent them rushing down the street and crashing into open stretches of prairie.
"Why does it have to go so fast?" he laments, standing taller, broader shouldered than he was even just a few weeks ago when the green first gave way to deep orange and sunset red. "I wish the leaves would stay a little longer ... they're so pretty like this."
I nod, resisting the urge to inform him that seasons changing are inevitable, that sometimes you blink and you miss the leaves lingering bright and gloriously from the trees at the peak of fall, only catching glimpses of their beauty as they run wildly off into the distance.
We stand together, staring at barren branches, sorry to have not stood here still for longer just a few days prior. I switch my gaze to his face, sleeker and defined more monthly by sharper curves, baby fat having mostly dripped away.
And I linger long in the blazing glory of five
because soon I'll be standing here catching tiny bursts of color racing down the streets.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Everyday Life: Carry You
It seems like I don't carry you much any more.
At freshly five, you are long and lanky and beyond a comfortable hip seat.
So I settle for snuggling you to sleep. Tonight, I practically have to beg you to let me be the one to see you off to your dreams, but you finally oblige.
And I breathe gratitude at having these minutes.
We lay in the dark, wrapped tight beneath blankets shielding our skin from cool of night-time lake air.
We whisper back and forth, and I tell you the story of five years ago today.
How we waited long and we waited patient for you to come. {"How long, mom?" Nine whole months!}
How I labored hours and then days. {"Did you eat? Did you sleep?" Not really.}
How I pushed you out of my belly. {"How!?" With strong muscles.}
And how all you wanted to do was sleep in my arms and nurse, which was good
because that's exactly all I wanted to do, too -- exhaustion set deep in my body, we both faded in and out of sleep for five glorious hours that first night.
You smile, and I remember the you from five years ago, tiny and snuggled against my chest, legs still shaking from the shear labor of your entrance.
We are still in thought, still in bed, snuggling
and I linger in the very effort, remembering the endurance,
how my muscles worked long
and hard
and well
to grow you,
carry you,
deliver you into arms that spent hours cradling and rocking your small self.
How these muscles fatigued and pushed beyond what I thought I could muster.
How I was so much stronger than I knew.
And how I didn't even have a clue that that would be the easy part.
That carrying you in belly and in arms and bearing down and bringing forth your life was only training for the muscle that would bear the real load.
How I couldn't have known that my heart would need all the training in strength it could build to wrap you up in this weight of heavy love and carry you long beyond what my arms ever could. Linking with The MOB society's Let's Hear it for the Boys.
At freshly five, you are long and lanky and beyond a comfortable hip seat.
So I settle for snuggling you to sleep. Tonight, I practically have to beg you to let me be the one to see you off to your dreams, but you finally oblige.
And I breathe gratitude at having these minutes.
We lay in the dark, wrapped tight beneath blankets shielding our skin from cool of night-time lake air.
We whisper back and forth, and I tell you the story of five years ago today.
How we waited long and we waited patient for you to come. {"How long, mom?" Nine whole months!}
How I labored hours and then days. {"Did you eat? Did you sleep?" Not really.}
How I pushed you out of my belly. {"How!?" With strong muscles.}
And how all you wanted to do was sleep in my arms and nurse, which was good
because that's exactly all I wanted to do, too -- exhaustion set deep in my body, we both faded in and out of sleep for five glorious hours that first night.
You smile, and I remember the you from five years ago, tiny and snuggled against my chest, legs still shaking from the shear labor of your entrance.
We are still in thought, still in bed, snuggling
and I linger in the very effort, remembering the endurance,
how my muscles worked long
and hard
and well
to grow you,
carry you,
deliver you into arms that spent hours cradling and rocking your small self.
How these muscles fatigued and pushed beyond what I thought I could muster.
How I was so much stronger than I knew.
And how I didn't even have a clue that that would be the easy part.
That carrying you in belly and in arms and bearing down and bringing forth your life was only training for the muscle that would bear the real load.
How I couldn't have known that my heart would need all the training in strength it could build to wrap you up in this weight of heavy love and carry you long beyond what my arms ever could. Linking with The MOB society's Let's Hear it for the Boys.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Bigger Picture Moments: What I Almost Missed
He carefully plucked a tiny violet flower from the Earth and brought it inside as a love offering for me.
At four, not much is done gently, but this gift, he knew, required delicate care.
Here mom! Look! he says bursting in through the patio door, I brought you this beautiful flower so you can look at it inside the house.
I was in the middle of cooking dinner, my hands in too many pots, trying not to burn and overboil, and I almost missed it.
But then he says,
I'll put it in water, so it can have a drink and stay alive.
And stay alive.
I abandon dinner, turn my back on the too many pots and instead oooohh and ahhh over the flower's loveliness, its faint smell of spring.
It needs water to stay alive, to revive after the picking, I repeat.
I catch glimpses of its brilliant purple through out the next day.
I marvel over its soft, royal petals and I think to myself, I've almost sold my soul, my heart for supposed gifts that are bigger, flashier but far less lovely.
But this gift?
These gifts that keep bringing more gifts?
They came free, picked just for me by a Loving Hand who seems to keep no memory of the times I've really blown it, the times I've almost sold myself in exchange for what seemed to be silver and shiny.
And I almost missed it all, all of it.
But grace flows, and so I didn't.
Share a picture, words, creation or list; just come to the table with the beauty in the simple moments of the week..
Live.
Reflect on the blessings that were apparent to you this week.
Capture.
Harvest them!
Share.
Link up your gleaned moment this week at Jade's! Please be sure to link to your post, not your blog. Your post must link back here or have our button in your post or the link will be deleted.
Encourage.
Visit at least the person linked before you and encourage her in this journey we call life.
At four, not much is done gently, but this gift, he knew, required delicate care.
Here mom! Look! he says bursting in through the patio door, I brought you this beautiful flower so you can look at it inside the house.
I was in the middle of cooking dinner, my hands in too many pots, trying not to burn and overboil, and I almost missed it.
But then he says,
I'll put it in water, so it can have a drink and stay alive.
And stay alive.
I abandon dinner, turn my back on the too many pots and instead oooohh and ahhh over the flower's loveliness, its faint smell of spring.
It needs water to stay alive, to revive after the picking, I repeat.
I catch glimpses of its brilliant purple through out the next day.
I marvel over its soft, royal petals and I think to myself, I've almost sold my soul, my heart for supposed gifts that are bigger, flashier but far less lovely.
But this gift?
These gifts that keep bringing more gifts?
They came free, picked just for me by a Loving Hand who seems to keep no memory of the times I've really blown it, the times I've almost sold myself in exchange for what seemed to be silver and shiny.
And I almost missed it all, all of it.
But grace flows, and so I didn't.
Share a picture, words, creation or list; just come to the table with the beauty in the simple moments of the week..
Live.
Reflect on the blessings that were apparent to you this week.
Capture.
Harvest them!
Share.
Link up your gleaned moment this week at Jade's! Please be sure to link to your post, not your blog. Your post must link back here or have our button in your post or the link will be deleted.
Encourage.
Visit at least the person linked before you and encourage her in this journey we call life.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Bigger Picture Moments: Sparkly
He bounds, all feet beneath a four-year-old body, out of the classroom with a huge grin spread thick across his dusting of freckles like peanut butter smeared heavy across a satisfied mouth.
An invitation to mommy night at preschool in his hand and a new song about being a mom bursting from his lips means we are counting down the days to our date night like we do Advent before Christmas.
****
"You'll need to wear a really really reaaaaaly fancy dress, mom," he says the afternoon before our big date night. "This is a serious date."
We pick out one together; luckily, he selects the black wrap dress that still fits and is gracious to fall naturally around an ever-changing body.
He then scurries to his room to dress himself in his best: his tuxedo with a white tie {NOT the red one tonight, daddy} and his fire boots.
A picture or five and we're off.
We don't want to be late.
"And, mommy, I'll carry your sparkly shoes," he says as I slip on warm wool socks and boots over nylons. "Your hands are too full."
****
He shows me his world in live, bright colors -- a world I only see glimpses of through his crafts and papers, his selective conversation and peeks during school drop off and pick up.
I marvel at my handsome, animated date, who still longs to holds my hand and presses his small fingers in between my own.
He gifts me his full attention and drinks up my undivided gaze and nodding smiles.
My heart sparkle-shimmers in adoration for the boy who made me a mother and a star of royalty for an evening.
As he shows me his magic shrinker tool, I glimpse his fire boots and my mind flutters back to a different date, long ago, years removed where I felt much like I do here in this classroom -- then a princess holding a much-larger-than-my-own hand, standing in the safe shadows of a taller, stockier, older version of my son at the fireman's picnic.
There is a blinkflutterblinkblink of my eyes and I see him moving and leading me to another space to unravel and explore together.
The night is a mixture of giggles and soaking up moments that will soon enough pass.
We end with the little ones singing us The Mom Song, and he asks me to take a picture.
I flip on the record switch but can barely keep him in focus through the lens of my phone because I'm simply too focused on capturing through my own eyes this boy -- live, in vivid, animated color -- burn here and now into my forever-memory.
The song ends and he collapses into my arms. I breathe in his soft scent and roll around in the newness of memories made, him and I together.
I whisper gratitude to God for a lost memory recovered of my late father, the man my young eyes saw as king, simply just another gift from the boy who has deemed me queen for an hour {and maybe queen of his heart, if I can manage such fortune, for a few more years}.
As my son picks up my sparkly shoes at night's end, I, too, offer thanks for too-full hands and a filled-to-the-brim heart.
Each Thursday {Friday for me this week!}, we come together to share the harvest of intentional living by capturing a glimmer of the bigger picture through a simple moment.
Share a picture, words, creation or list; just come to the table with thanksgiving in your heart.
Live.
Reflect on the blessings that were apparent to you this week.
Capture.
Harvest them!
Share.
Link up your gleaned moment this week at Sarah's. Please be sure to link to your post, not your blog. Your post must link back here or have our button in your post or the link will be deleted.
Encourage.
Visit at least the person linked before you and encourage her in this journey we call life.
An invitation to mommy night at preschool in his hand and a new song about being a mom bursting from his lips means we are counting down the days to our date night like we do Advent before Christmas.
****
"You'll need to wear a really really reaaaaaly fancy dress, mom," he says the afternoon before our big date night. "This is a serious date."
We pick out one together; luckily, he selects the black wrap dress that still fits and is gracious to fall naturally around an ever-changing body.
He then scurries to his room to dress himself in his best: his tuxedo with a white tie {NOT the red one tonight, daddy} and his fire boots.
A picture or five and we're off.
We don't want to be late.
"And, mommy, I'll carry your sparkly shoes," he says as I slip on warm wool socks and boots over nylons. "Your hands are too full."
****
He shows me his world in live, bright colors -- a world I only see glimpses of through his crafts and papers, his selective conversation and peeks during school drop off and pick up.
I marvel at my handsome, animated date, who still longs to holds my hand and presses his small fingers in between my own.
He gifts me his full attention and drinks up my undivided gaze and nodding smiles.
My heart sparkle-shimmers in adoration for the boy who made me a mother and a star of royalty for an evening.
As he shows me his magic shrinker tool, I glimpse his fire boots and my mind flutters back to a different date, long ago, years removed where I felt much like I do here in this classroom -- then a princess holding a much-larger-than-my-own hand, standing in the safe shadows of a taller, stockier, older version of my son at the fireman's picnic.
There is a blinkflutterblinkblink of my eyes and I see him moving and leading me to another space to unravel and explore together.
The night is a mixture of giggles and soaking up moments that will soon enough pass.
We end with the little ones singing us The Mom Song, and he asks me to take a picture.
I flip on the record switch but can barely keep him in focus through the lens of my phone because I'm simply too focused on capturing through my own eyes this boy -- live, in vivid, animated color -- burn here and now into my forever-memory.
The song ends and he collapses into my arms. I breathe in his soft scent and roll around in the newness of memories made, him and I together.
I whisper gratitude to God for a lost memory recovered of my late father, the man my young eyes saw as king, simply just another gift from the boy who has deemed me queen for an hour {and maybe queen of his heart, if I can manage such fortune, for a few more years}.
As my son picks up my sparkly shoes at night's end, I, too, offer thanks for too-full hands and a filled-to-the-brim heart.
Each Thursday {Friday for me this week!}, we come together to share the harvest of intentional living by capturing a glimmer of the bigger picture through a simple moment.
Share a picture, words, creation or list; just come to the table with thanksgiving in your heart.
Live.
Reflect on the blessings that were apparent to you this week.
Capture.
Harvest them!
Share.
Link up your gleaned moment this week at Sarah's. Please be sure to link to your post, not your blog. Your post must link back here or have our button in your post or the link will be deleted.
Encourage.
Visit at least the person linked before you and encourage her in this journey we call life.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Sound Bytes: Weenies, Christmas Trees and Overflowing Toilets
G {four years old}: "Mommmy! Mommy! Look! It's SNOWING! GO GET THE CHRISTMAS TREE!"
Dear, if we put up the Christmas tree every time it snowed in Chicagoland, we could likely have that big old pine glowing from October through May. And I'm not so sure the neighbors would enjoy that much festivity.
****
While on the phone, just as my friend Erinn's voicemail beeped and began recording G ran in to announce:
G: "Mommy. You KNOW you don't have a weenie, right? Because you don't. You just don't, OK?"
Um, yes, I did know. And if Auntie Erinn didn't know before, she sure does now!
****
Snuggling into bed a few nights ago, we asked G if he wanted to pray about anything, to which he replied: "Yes! Today at school my friend S started overflowing the toilet. And Ms. Denise had to run in there. But I just stayed away and kept doing my project. Because the toilet was overflowing ... I didn't SEE it but ... What makes toilets overflow anyway?"
Let's see, in my experience: Barbie and troll dolls and stuffed bears, oh my.
Happy Friday, friends!
Friday, October 21, 2011
Five-Minute Friday: Beyond
What happens, then, if we are upstairs and a tornado rips through the walls of our house, he asks, four years old and curious with mountains of questions.
We trust that God will protect us or take us to be with him forever, I say, resigning in my own mind that that's what we do while planning for a proverbial tragedy, while standing face to face with a giant.
We are talking disaster on a sun-drenched, October-blue sky day for reasons about which I'm unsure.
He sniffles from the backseat, light streaming in through the windshield, and I think he's going to cry about the prospect of dying.
But instead:
"I want to be with God now! I want to be in Heaven with Jesus now!"
My spirit soars at his devotion, his huge faith as my heart thumps and leaps into my throat at the thought of G going to his forever home, away from the space between my chest and my arm to space in between His at the age of four.
You will get to spend forever with Jesus after you finish living your life here, I reassure him,
as my thoughts wildly bounce from flesh to faith and faith to flesh
-- hoping selfishly that I won't see the day
where he goes ahead of me into the author's arms
and out of mine
--- hoping that I, too, would one day have faith
the size of a mustard seed
the faith of my child
who is so very four
and
so very beyond the very few years he's lived.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Everyday Life: Interpretation
Really, when I asked him to get dressed, I didn't quite mean for this to be the result.
But that's my oldest -- always imagining and thinking and doing life his own quirky way. You'd think that one creative, quirky, ever-turning brain would totally get the other, that I would be the first to embrace his expressions and dole out plenty of patience for his off-the-beaten path endeavors.
But I've really had to rework my expectations of him, reminding myself to let him be who he was created to be ...
remember that he is his own person.
Sometimes, that's an hourly, day-by-day process.
Like, yesterday, I had two options: I could let myself get all frustrated with him because we were already running late, and he was totally not ready to go or I could embrace him, laugh and gently request him to redress for going out.
Yesterday, I chose the second {it was a good day; I've had plenty where I've chosen the first and regretted it.}
Because it's all a matter of interpretation -- for him and for me.
And I'm learning {slowly}how to interpret, how to embrace that and how to embrace us.
{Yes, his leg holes are in the arm holes, and there is a belt holding up his "pants".}
 |
But that's my oldest -- always imagining and thinking and doing life his own quirky way. You'd think that one creative, quirky, ever-turning brain would totally get the other, that I would be the first to embrace his expressions and dole out plenty of patience for his off-the-beaten path endeavors.
But I've really had to rework my expectations of him, reminding myself to let him be who he was created to be ...
remember that he is his own person.
Sometimes, that's an hourly, day-by-day process.
Like, yesterday, I had two options: I could let myself get all frustrated with him because we were already running late, and he was totally not ready to go or I could embrace him, laugh and gently request him to redress for going out.
Yesterday, I chose the second {it was a good day; I've had plenty where I've chosen the first and regretted it.}
Because it's all a matter of interpretation -- for him and for me.
And I'm learning {slowly}how to interpret, how to embrace that and how to embrace us.
{Yes, his leg holes are in the arm holes, and there is a belt holding up his "pants".}
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Everyday Life: Knowing
For two straight weeks, I'd been a mess.
With all of the agonizing and waffling and talktalktalking off of my husband's ear, you'd have thought I were tiebreaker for a hung jury during a monumental trial.
But no -- it was really just me wrestling with G's school options for the fall: every day Kindergarten Enrichment or a few morning hours three days a week.
I just couldn't be sure, I'd told my hubby, if any of us were ready for everyday school, to which he reminded me that this was really more about G than the rest of us.
Yeah, and also, how do you know what's going to be best for him before it even happens?
Simple, he'd said, you take the facts in front of you, pray, make a decision and then you choose to take the steps of faith.
Oh, yes: steps of faith.
But I know the movements of knowing, the Salsa of dancing myself into knowledge -- I work hard to conquer the complicated motions and movement.
Steps of faith.
The phrase hung in the then-thick August air as I thought about my oldest son -- wild and yet cautious, ever-thinking, always-planning, constantly-growing.
His mind is such a sponge. He soaks up knowledge and feelings and body language like a flower in full bloom during drought.
He remembers the smallest, minute details, recalls the least memorable sights and sounds from months, even years past.
I'm always so careful in making decisions for him and in regard to him because he's the kind of kid who always remembers what happened that one time when we ... {fill in the various and myriad blanks}.
I pray and wonder.
I wander, and I go over every detail of the large and small point so as to really know, so as not to miss a dot that could potentially connect them all or covertly distort the larger picture.
I wander until I backwards bump into faith and trust while salsaing passionately with knowing.
It's mid song; I attempt break free and try to find the pace of slower rhythm promised, but it looks so much harder to just let go and follow the Master Dancer's lead.
****
Today's the first day of school, and I'm still trying to dance in two different shows as we walk up to the familiar doors.
I snap his picture by the liberty bell before we walk in, and he bursts into a large grin upon entering.
We hold hands as we find his new cubby space.
I hand him a piece of paper for his teacher, but "Mom, could you hold that until after I was my hands?"
He remembers the routine of school.
"Hello, G!" his teacher, a neighbor of ours, greets him.
Poised to prompt him, I ready myself for saying -- but instead his voice, "Hi."
I look over my shoulder back at the salsa with my old friend knowing as G continues to slip right into his new space in the comfort of the same classroom as last year and the beat seems to get faster and faster and faster until I don't even care to keep up anymore, trying to connect all the footwork to the right places of the song.
G kissed me goodbye, his teacher gives me a reassuring pat on the back and my son heads over to the lounge chairs with a brand-new-to-the-room book.
I don't know if this is going to be good. Or if it's going to be bad. Or if it's going to simply be just normal.
But I do know, whatever happens, it's going to be OK because upon slipping into the steps of faith and trust, though unknown, and finding the beat more manageable, the Lead so smoothly guides me that I can't help but to fall into the music.
I wave goodbye to my oldest boy, slide into the long swoops of trust in Arms that won't let me fall even if lose my step a few times.
With all of the agonizing and waffling and talktalktalking off of my husband's ear, you'd have thought I were tiebreaker for a hung jury during a monumental trial.
But no -- it was really just me wrestling with G's school options for the fall: every day Kindergarten Enrichment or a few morning hours three days a week.
I just couldn't be sure, I'd told my hubby, if any of us were ready for everyday school, to which he reminded me that this was really more about G than the rest of us.
Yeah, and also, how do you know what's going to be best for him before it even happens?
Simple, he'd said, you take the facts in front of you, pray, make a decision and then you choose to take the steps of faith.
Oh, yes: steps of faith.
But I know the movements of knowing, the Salsa of dancing myself into knowledge -- I work hard to conquer the complicated motions and movement.
Steps of faith.
The phrase hung in the then-thick August air as I thought about my oldest son -- wild and yet cautious, ever-thinking, always-planning, constantly-growing.
His mind is such a sponge. He soaks up knowledge and feelings and body language like a flower in full bloom during drought.
He remembers the smallest, minute details, recalls the least memorable sights and sounds from months, even years past.
I'm always so careful in making decisions for him and in regard to him because he's the kind of kid who always remembers what happened that one time when we ... {fill in the various and myriad blanks}.
I pray and wonder.
I wander, and I go over every detail of the large and small point so as to really know, so as not to miss a dot that could potentially connect them all or covertly distort the larger picture.
I wander until I backwards bump into faith and trust while salsaing passionately with knowing.
It's mid song; I attempt break free and try to find the pace of slower rhythm promised, but it looks so much harder to just let go and follow the Master Dancer's lead.
****
Today's the first day of school, and I'm still trying to dance in two different shows as we walk up to the familiar doors.
I snap his picture by the liberty bell before we walk in, and he bursts into a large grin upon entering.
We hold hands as we find his new cubby space.
I hand him a piece of paper for his teacher, but "Mom, could you hold that until after I was my hands?"
He remembers the routine of school.
"Hello, G!" his teacher, a neighbor of ours, greets him.
Poised to prompt him, I ready myself for saying -- but instead his voice, "Hi."
I look over my shoulder back at the salsa with my old friend knowing as G continues to slip right into his new space in the comfort of the same classroom as last year and the beat seems to get faster and faster and faster until I don't even care to keep up anymore, trying to connect all the footwork to the right places of the song.
G kissed me goodbye, his teacher gives me a reassuring pat on the back and my son heads over to the lounge chairs with a brand-new-to-the-room book.
I don't know if this is going to be good. Or if it's going to be bad. Or if it's going to simply be just normal.
But I do know, whatever happens, it's going to be OK because upon slipping into the steps of faith and trust, though unknown, and finding the beat more manageable, the Lead so smoothly guides me that I can't help but to fall into the music.
I wave goodbye to my oldest boy, slide into the long swoops of trust in Arms that won't let me fall even if lose my step a few times.
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