A New Start 🚌

I haven’t posted in a few weeks. July was a busy month for me and I’ve been so tired.  I wanted to use August to soak up every last minute of summer with the boys, but the truth is I didn’t.

I wanted to go on unplanned adventures. I wanted to take each of the boys separately for a day.  I wanted to go away with Ben alone for a few nights. I wanted us to spend a long weekend away with the boys as a family. But I didn’t. I’ve been so tired.

I would tell them that we would do these things and I would cancel at the last minute. “Let’s just stay home and watch a movie instead”. I would fall asleep on the couch a few minutes in. I would wake up to see they were back in their fantasy fortnight worlds. I thought to myself ‘it could be worse, at least they were talking with friends’.

I still make sure I take time to read my daily devotionals each morning. I also do a bit of writing myself in my small pink journal. I’m guessing it’s going to be book number two. I’ve had so many crazy things happen over the past several months. They are so crazy, I find I have a hard time believing them myself. Part of me wonders if this is why I’m so tired…all of the cool things that are happening to me.

I don’t have many pictures of this summer.  No memories to look back on years down the road, but what I do have is a start of a strong foundation for my family.  This summer, I have made sure that I tell the boys of all of the cool things happening in my life. They were shocked at first of the stories. I tell them so often now that they are getting used to me talking about how God is working in my life. It is becoming the new normal to them.

Last year, on the first day of school, I sent off two entirely different boys. Today, after they left, I sat and thought about how each of them has grown…in more ways than height.

Before I dropped Josh off at school I had him stand in front of the stove for his traditional “in front of the oven” first day of school photo.

He is several inches taller than me now.  I also thought about how much more confident he is. He no longer has the nervous stomach or pull of his hair. He tells me who he will sit with at lunch and I remind him not to let anyone sit alone.  He agrees it would suck to sit alone. We are reminded of the movie “Wonder” that I did stay awake to watch with him. I took a day off of work to just lay on the couch and watch movies.  He decided to join me instead of doing his summer Algebra homework.  He is starting to find the balance in life too. I pray he sees God working in me and knows that he doesn’t need to be worried about anything as long as he has his faith.  I will continue to pray he always remembers just that.

Then there is Aiden.  I look forward to spending time alone with just him each morning after I take Josh to school.  Today I was disappointed when he asked me to wait on the steps and not walk him down.  He wanted to go to the bus stop alone.  I asked if I could go just this one day, but he said he would really like to go by himself. I agreed, took our traditional “in front of the front door picture” and sat on our retaining wall alone and watched him walk down. I forgot to ask Jesus to sit and keep me company and wallowed in my self-pity.

Aiden turned around a few times on his way down to sign ‘I Love You’ and do a few crazy dances.  I laughed and wished I could still hold his hand to walk him down.

When he was at the bus stop he started to play the game with me that he always plays when he gets off the bus each afternoon. He makes a motion with his arms and then I repeat it. We did about ten of them and then I saw him start to walk back towards home. He made a motion with his arms for me to come down. I heard a mother at the stop say,“the bus is coming”. I jumped up and started to run towards him.  He ran to meet me in the middle and said, “I love you so much” and gave me the biggest hug.  He turned and ran back to the stop. Jesus wasn’t sitting with me on the wall this morning…he had gone to get my Aiden.