Molly Piper

(via Karsten)

My brother-in-law Karsten posted this song on 9/11. I couldn’t help owning it for today, Felicity’s birthday, three years later.

The line that makes me cry today:

Your house is waiting…for you to walk in.

I never saw her steps. What I wouldn’t give to watch her walk into our house–watch her strut around the place without a care about mortgages, utilities, broken stuff. It would just be her home, that safe place she calls hers.

But, I’ll join her at her place someday. And somehow…somehow I won’t regret all the years we spent apart.

Today I do.

Last week I hurried up and snapped this, thinking, “Hurry, hurry! No one’s crying–take a picture!!!”

The babies are doing very well. They are growing and waking up a lot more. This week Cadence has even given us a couple smiles that seem voluntary rather than reflexive!

The babies are dropping one of their nighttime feedings, I think. The last couple nights they’ve slept and just woken up one time during the night. It makes such a difference, I feel like a new woman. But I hesitate to even type this, because you know what’s going to happen tonight…they’ll wake up every hour or something.

Last week I got mastitis for the first time in my career as a mother. On the whole, I don’t recommend it. Not a very fun time. I never could fully sympathize with friends who got it, but now…mother! It’s HORRIBLE!

Whit has reflux. He’s super fussy after feeding and very spitty-uppy. He’s now on Zantac, which won’t help the volume of spit-up, but will at least help with the pain.

I don’t have time to write much more right now. I hope all of you are doing well!

My, my, my…how did we get to this day?

My oldest baby isn’t a baby anymore.

He’s not a toddler anymore.

He’s not even a preschooler anymore.

He’s a Kindergartner.

Orison, you’ve grown up so much! Not just in the obvious physical ways, but you are a boy now. No traces of babyhood or toddlerhood are left in you. You’re a boy now.

So many new adventures await you in school. When you walk out of those doors in June, you will have learned so many things that you had no idea about as you walked in the doors today. And even when you finish Kindergarten, there’ll be even more to learn. So many books to read, so many words to write, so many math problems to solve.

I pray for you this school year, Orison–that God would somehow take all this knowledge that you’ll acquire and transform you through it; that you’ll grow smarter in mind and stronger in heart. And through all of this growing that you’ll grow closer and closer to God, who made it all and gave it all for you to enjoy, and that you will feel his love for you in new ways.

Be strong, my brave little boy. This world is not always the happy, fun little place you’ve known. You’ve seen glimpses into the deep disappointments of life, the injustices that are in our world, and the differences that exist between people living down here. You will see more. I wish I could promise something different. But I pray that seeing these things will draw you closer to your Father, who loves you and gave his Son for you. He is a good Father. He is a loving Father.

Enjoy every day, little one. You were probably more ready for this step of the journey today than I was. I sit here weeping and typing while you’re frolicking and chatting on the car ride home. You’ll get me through this somehow.

I can’t wait to hug your little boy body when you get home. I can’t wait to hear all about everything you did today.

I’m so proud of you, my Kindergartner.

Today marks Orison’s last day of being a preschooler. Tomorrow he enters into the 13+-year commitment of being school-aged.

Technically he’s been doing school for a couple years, but it was preschool. This rite of passage into Kindergarten feels much more significant.

So last night we had our first homework assignment. However…

• school hasn’t even started.
• somehow it was me & Abraham doing the assignment.

The assignment was to construct a little “All About Me” box with a few things in it to help the teacher and other students get to know each other. Cute idea, I’m totally behind it. But when I think about the assignment, I keep thinking about it from my perspective, because I ended up doing most of the work!

Part 1: Find a suitable box.
Part 2: Wrap said box (because I couldn’t just schlep him off to school with a bare cardboard box with Amazon labels all over it). I chose to just use a brown paper bag so he could decorate it in his own style (AND I didn’t have enough of any one kind of wrapping paper).
Part 3: Decorate the box (we did this together today).
Part 4: Help him think of things that would be good for the box. (Which also means steering him away from some of the more, um, how do I say?… creative ideas he came up with.)
Part 5: Print out a picture of our family for the box.

This is getting kinda labor-intensive if you ask me! Last night it took me and Abraham working together about 15 minutes to get the box wrapped. I turned to Abraham at one point and said,

‘Welcome to the world of school-aged children. This is just the beginning, you know. Soon there’s going to be science fairs and colonial bizarres. This isn’t going to end for a looong time.’

Now, I’m not complaining. I value education. I value that I have options and I’m not homeschooling right now. I value that he’s going to a school where he’ll learn new and wonderful things.

But I realized last night that soon I’ll be doing homework for with 4 children. (Sigh…). I am entering into the world of the school-aged mom.