To me, June is a beacon of happy times to come. It is the start of a summer full of promise, but also is an acknowledgement that my children are growing fast and that time passes much too quickly. This summer, my three-year-old Owen will start preschool. And I can hardly believe these words as I type them, but next year at this time, we will be preparing for Drew to start kindergarden (gasp!)
I can hardly believe it. My baby - my firstborn - will be ready to join the ranks of students in school. Actual school! I remember when I was in kindergarden - how can I have a child going to kindergarden? This is a bittersweet emotion for me. On one hand, I'm excited for Drew to start a new chapter because he is so ready for the challenge and would thoroughly enjoy it; however, the other hand is telling me to slow down, take a deep breath, and think about what I have taught him, or more importantly, what I have not yet taught him (and get on it!) It's very important to me to raise kind and conscientious children, those who think about others and make efforts to improve the circumstances around them and lead by example. I want to raise gentlemen. It is my job to raise gentlemen. And so much of their ability to do this comes from skills and lessons we will teach them as parents. Pressure, to say the least.
I don't always know the perfect thing to say to my kids when they ask me questions or need a good lesson. It is interesting to me how much they believe me and trust me. It is pure blinded unwavering trust. At times, admittedly, I have absolutely no clue of what I'm doing as parent, but I'm reassured and validated by trusting little eyes that tell me whichever path I select, it will be the right one. I believe our kids will know what's good and will find their own way to adopting good inherent attributes even if we don't have the perfect lectures to provide. I believe that they will know far more by how we model behaviors than by how we verbally advise them. As Jill Churchill said, "there's no way to be a perfect mother, and a million ways to be a good one."
While I may never instruct my children in a way that merits applause or goes down in history, I do it as thoughtfully as possible, cutting myself some slack that I'm doing the best job I can. And every day, God grants me three special reminders that we're doing just fine.
You know, the strength of motherhood is really powerful. I am sitting here with a house to clean, a car to clean and a to-do list a mile long (and by 'house to clean,' you should realize that I mean the point where you consider if it's really worth cleaning the master bedroom or rather, lighting a match and watching it all burn, and by 'car to clean,' you should realize that I could feed Drew's preschool class for a week with the leftovers on the floor on my mini-van, and by 'to-do' list, you should realize that I have post-it notes slapped on every surface available to me at both home and at work); yet, none of it really bothers me. I would rather think about my children and continue to capture my thoughts in this blog post than cross any one of my tasks off of my post-it notes.
Welcome June. Goodnight moon - it is night night time.
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