SCHOOL!

I am so happy to see school start. Don't get me wrong...I love my family but the thought of sending them ALL to school tomorrow makes me smile. I will be just as excited when they all get out for Thanksgiving and Christmas, Spring Break and Summer. It is simply a ritual. The beginning of something...getting into a routine, I find comfort in the thought of both. My problem usually begins when the wheels come off of the routine cart about a month into it. When I haven't got what we need for lunches and the homework is starting to be a little overwhelming...someone has lost her planner or papers or backpack. Someone else has decided she doesn't like school and refuses to admit she has homework. This is when the routine becomes un-fun.
We have an unusual situation this year. We have one child starting kindergarten and another graduating from high school. This beginning and ending is all part of life. Having seven children and now three grandchildren we are going to be celebrating graduations and first years for a long time. It is bittersweet, I am sad to see my older son look at life beyond this bird cage he has lived in for the last 18 years. He feels the cool metal of the cage door under his feet, I can already hear the lonely squeak when he leaves it open for his brother to fly out to join him just a year after. He will have stories to tell by then, of the great big sky and all that awaits them there. What will I do then? The routine will certainly change. We will still have much work to do; three more little girls.
With kindergarten comes a new beginning, it seems like yesterday I dropped the oldest off and assured myself I had done the right thing. She would be okay...which, she was. It gets easier to let them go I suppose. It is easier to be excited about this last little darling who thinks she rules the world. Our caseworker told us we were creating a monster with her because she is so socially intuitive. I hope her teacher has a heart of gold and nerves of steel. She will surely need both. She has grown so much. They all have. It is hard to believe I will be sixty-three when she graduates, twentyone years after her oldest sister. All this mothering has taught me a thing or two but I realize this is a journey to enjoy not to wish away. I can dread the future or relax and know that God is already there. It is his provision and sustainance that keeps me breathing. I can no more raise kids than make the sun shine. It is fruitless to say my daughters turned out well because of anything I did or didn't do. It is also not my effort that is shaping my boys into men. I just don't know how to do that...neither does their daddy who is a great man and shaper of people. It is the fact that we know God has them that gives us peace. It will be his voice in their ears and his hand on their backs when the going gets tough, and I suspect it will get tough. They will turn out to be good men because before they were born I asked God to just let me borrow them. It is all his business.
So as the bells ring tomorrow and everyone goes to his assigned seat I will pray, for the teachers, for the principals, the counselors, the lunchroom ladies, the aides and most especially for the children; my children and yours, who keep us going and keep us young.
Now, I have a few sandwiches to make.