Graduation was fantastic and we had a great weekend. For the first time in a while, we had no where to be on Saturday morning. I woke up before the kids and sat on the porch with Dave to drink my coffee. We went to breakfast and did our shopping, and I spent a few hours cooking for the week. We filled the house with cousins for the evening and Dave made supper. It was a low-key day, and we needed it.
Sunday morning, I found a letter from Dave in my coffee drawer. I sat down in the sunshine in the Big Room to read it while I drank my coffee and I cried. It was one of those things that is just so perfectly on time, so perfectly soothing to the soul, so very needed in the moment. I've read it over and over again since then.
After church we had lunch at Rebecca's with Grandmother, and supper at our house with Grandma. It was a day full of family; a really good day.
Monday was Monday, but Tuesday was the last day of school. For one kid, it was a blast (he had a water party and was just beside himself about having chips and pizza for lunch), for the other, it was hard. It was hard for me, too, knowing how she felt and feeling very much the same. I had written thank you notes to her teachers the night before, trying to fit all of my gratitude for the past three years coherently into a note card. As if three years of loving her wasn't enough, she came home with a hefty three ring binder full of the things she did this year and notes from her friends and her teacher. I flipped through the whole thing immediately, but Dave chose to wait, saying, "I can't handle that right now." The best part is the book with all of her friends handprints and notes about what they liked to do with her and why they like her, including a page from her teacher - which she didn't know about until I read it to her. We sat on the couch last night and went through the whole binder, and at bed time she asked if I would read the friend book again tonight. It's obviously a source of comfort to her. She has asked me to pray for her each night about being out of school because she wasn't ready for it to be over and she misses her friends. I have. I've prayed while she listened, and I've prayed some more later when I went to check on her and found her sleeping. I know she'll be fine once we get fully into the swing of summer, but she's struggling right now, and I'm struggling right along with her. If the end of preschool is this rough, what kind of wreck will I be at the end of high school?
The highlight of the week for them both was coming home Tuesday evening to see our waterslide inflated in the yard. Luke's eyes grew 10 sizes as he asked me, breathlessly, "I get to put my swimpoot on?" Yep. Swimpoot time. They have played and played, and we will probably leave it up until the pool opens next weekend. Then, it will be put away until her birthday party.
We also had our one week check-up on the new earrings, and Dr. Tattoo Piercer gave her a clean bill of health. Again, Luke queued up his list of ailments to report, and asked me about our "appointment" as we were leaving. For some reason, I'm finding his confusion about this especially amusing.
Outside of our household, some of my friends and several others I pray for regularly have also had very emotional weeks with sickness and injury and bad news and good news. It's been a lot to take in, and I've spent a lot of time stopping mid-something to pray for whoever just popped into my head. That's how it works for me, my mind just wanders along doing what it does, then suddenly it's like Emeril makes an appearance in there: "BAM! Someone's Name," and I have to pray.
The verse I've clung to this week is the one Ella's teacher gave them in class on Monday. It seems fitting for most of the people I've prayed for this week.
"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." - Joshua 1:9
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