Well another birthday has come and gone. We had a wonderful birthday vacation at the mountain house (pics to come later). It was calm and relaxing and gave me plenty of time to think about the second half of the year.
I never realized what a blessing it is having a birthday in the very middle of the year. As a child my birthday never got celebrated at school like the other kids birthdays. I hated that. As an adult it's given way to a new take on goal setting and evaluating how my year is going. The first of the year is always an exciting time. Making resolutions that you will most likely not keep. Thinking about the year ahead and how it's going to be the best year ever!
Then life happens.
I think more has happened to our family in the first half of this year than in any other year combined. My grandmother passed very unexpectedly (and honestly it was kinda traumatically). Then we had to pull J out of school which was also quite unexpected. Finally F was diagnosed with Apraxia and Strabismus. Once again, you guessed it, quite unexpectedly. Really though. In the previous year there were no signs that any of this was going to happen. Then wham!! Life hits you in the face and you never even saw it coming.
BUT! To have a birthday in the middle of the year brings a new sense of hope and optimism with it. The first half didn't work out quite as well as I thought it would, but now I've got the opportunity to reevaluate and regroup and start again. It's a new year of life for me and once again I have the gift of getting re energized and making new resolutions (that I may or may not keep... stay tuned...) and thinking about my new year of life ahead and how it's going to be the best year ever! That's right, you can't stomp my shine ;-)
So back to my actual birthday. I came down in the morning and saw I had a few birthday messages on facebook. While reading them over I also saw people posting their back to school pictures as well. In our area year round school is huge and 3 of the 4 tracks went back to school yesterday. This is a little bittersweet for me. One of the things I've struggled with in taking the kids out of public school is the fear of missing out. This is very stupid I know because also in this area homeschool is huge. Anything a public school student can do, a homeschool student can do. Sports, proms, graduation, you name it, we've got it all and there are a lot of us doing it. None-the-less it still tugs at me every once in a while since this journey is never one I thought we'd be on.
So as I'm looking at all these pics trying not to let my mind go down that road, hubby makes a comment to J that it was time to get back to school. J then turned to hubby and said "but I don't want to go back to that kindergarten school, I want to homeschool". He then came into the living room and asked if we could get back to homeschooling. God never ceases to amaze me. His timing is perfect. Of course it is, it's all in his plan and has been all along. He knew that I needed that affirmation that we're doing the right thing for our family at that exact moment and he gave it to me. I hadn't even mentioned anything to hubby about getting back to homeschooling that day so I don't know where that comment even came from except that the entire exchange was prompted from God, for me. He gifted it to me on my birthday.
If that wasn't enough, the cherry on my sundae came that night. As you know F has Apraxia and can be very difficult to understand at times. Since her very first birthday she has HATED the happy birthday song. When everyone starts singing it she begins screaming like you're hurting her. Always. At every party one of us has to walk away with her a safe distance and she covers her ears because she knows it's coming. At her own last birthday party even she covered her ears and no one sang the song, we all just said happy birthday together. So finally last night we were at my parents house for dinner and they all started to sing the song. Of course as a mom my first reaction was to turn to F and see what she'd do. Then the most amazing thing happened. She not only didn't scream, but she also didn't cover her ears. Then, she began to sing. I'm not even sure if the words were right or if it was just the melody, but what I do know is that my little girl sang me Happy Birthday and that's the best present I could've asked for.
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