Since I Have Last Blogged...

May always gets away from me. I don't know about you, but I would take the hurried holidays over the mayhem of May any day. With spring comes sports and projects and the wrap up of a year well-spent... and while all of it has its upside, in the end I feel like I can barely keep up.

Since I have last blogged, Josiah and Elizabeth started baseball and have played all their games, save one. They are on the same team and both have really learned to hit the ball. Mark and I have watched in amazement as our youngest boy came to embrace a sport our older boys did not care for much at this young age. Josiah also had a chance to try soccer in a nearby town and has grown from an overwhelmed kindergartner unable to understand why he had to run around after that dumb ball, to a true competitor who has found joy in contributing to a team effort to score.

Since I have last blogged, Noah has jumped into another baseball season and another soccer season and finds himself playing side-by-side school friends on both. While we normally do not "double-sport", Noah has found that he loves the fullness of juggling school and two sports and has a great time on both teams. Soccer ends for him on Saturday but baseball has a long way to go!

Since I have last blogged, Benjamin has thought through what it means for him to play on a travel soccer team. We have spent time evaluating with him what is good and what is frustrating about this different level of play. For a boy who loves to run and laugh and compete HARD, the conversation was a tricky one... and truth be told, something we continue to process with him still.

Since I have last blogged, I have wrapped up another busy speaking season and have had some time to reflect on how blessed I am to be able to spend time connecting with women far and wide about our important roles as moms. Whether we were talking together about organizing our children or balancing our lives or organizing our home life or playing outside, that time feels like pure privilege to me. I am now busy planning next year's speaking schedule and am excited for what is yet to come.

Since I have last blogged, I have worked alongside my children completing school projects, studying for tests, memorizing Scripture and generally trying to keep us all on track through this trying time. All in all, it felt too full and yet I know I felt the same way last year... and the year before that, as well.

In the midst of all that activity, I flipped the calendar over and this week found myself standing in June. With nothing more than the change of the month, all that busyness ground to a halt and now I am in a season anew.

Tomorrow is the last day of school. Noah, Benjamin and Josiah will all go for a half-day and suddenly find themselves older, wiser and a grade ahead. Am I ready? Am I ready to be the mom to a seventh grader, a fifth grader, a first grader... and in the fall, my final kindergartner? In talking this over with a friend last week, I remarked that in many ways advancing in school starts to feel more weighty to me than the birthdays of my children. By the time my 9 year old turned 10, I was ready and had been trying that age out on him for months. But, finding my fourth grader has suddenly become a fifth grader, with all the increased responsibilities, social pressures and impending "talk" just stuns me. It feels so old and this leads me, every year, to a place of such nostalgia. How can it be that my sweet babies are getting so much older? How can it be that the same boy that I just taught to ride a bike is now looking sideways at the sweet girl who sits two rows over in homeroom? Some days it seems like it goes too fast and when the school year ends, I find myself seeing it all through a wide-angle lens... learning to walk and starting school and becoming a 'tween all in one quick pic.

And maybe that is okay... Maybe it is okay for us to have moments when the scurry of our schedule slows down and what had been rushing by in a blur becomes suddenly clear. They are growing up before our very eyes. And we get to watch. We get to help. We get to journey alongside those we love best and offer our hand as they learn to navigate the path they will soon enough own.

Tomorrow is the last day of school and but today is for remembering and seeing and smiling at what I sometimes miss. Today I have a sixth grader, a fourth grader and a kindergarten boy. Tomorrow, the world will change and I have three months to adjust to that new truth. Three months to play and learn and sleep and be with these children who will only be this age once. I know we will all miss school but I look forward to all that summer will bring.

Keep reading, friends. I will be blogging next on how we get ready for summer at our house... traditions we share, how we structure our days and normal words that we count as "swears" during June, July and August. I will write again soon! I am off now to spend time with my daughter... the last day of one-on-one time til she shares her days with her brothers all summer long. I may be lost in thought but I want to see what is in front of me while its still here.

Blessings on your day!