Two in a Year: Schooled

I just looked at my blog and realized I only made one post in the month of August. One. That is so unlike me. If you could access my posting link, you would see that I actually started a dozen posts in August but only finished one. Sigh. A methaphor for my life. Starting a million things and barely finishing one.

Chris and I are on the board of an adoption ministry at our church called CHOSEN (Christ's Hope for Orphans - Supporting, Embracing, Nurturing. Catchy, ain't it?). It is very near and dear to our hearts, and we passionately devote as much time and love as we can to this ministry. But when the current leaders of CHOSEN, who are in the latter weeks of expecting their third daughter, asked us to take over their position as leaders of the ministry, Chris and I both froze in our tracks. Impossible. Not for lack of concupiscence, mind you, but for the simple reason that we feel like we are in a perpetual state of behindness. That's probably not a word, but it does acurately express what I'm trying to say. Put it this way, after prayerful consideration about leading the ministry, I turned to Chris and said, "I feel like I can't give 100% of myself to anything right now, because I'm too busy giving 10% of myself to everything".

KnowwhatImean?

As it is now September, I can say with great mirth that summer has officially drawn to a close in Plano, Texas, and preschool has begun. Most moms I know are nostalgic, dreading this day, swiping at tears as they walk their pink, frilly, be-bowed girls through the halls of the institution that will be attempting to learn their youth of numbers, letters, word and song. My own response to this annual August rite-of-passage (anyone? anyone?)...

Hallelujah.

Oh yes.

Praise God and Jesus that summer is over. Thank you, thank you... THANK YOU. Oh, joy, joy joy.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the carefree days of sleeping in until - er, 7, playing at the park for all of twenty minutes until we were all "soaking sweaty" and the red plastic slide became too hot for scooting the tiny booties of my children. I enjoyed the family bike rides that usually ended one mile in when my child declared it too hot, and alighted from her bike in the middle of the sidewalk in favor of a neighbor's errant sprinkler defying the water-ban rules that only allow sprinkling bi-weekly in the dead of night. And I just loved the proclamation that "we're bored, Mom/what are we going to do now/when does school start?"

Actually, in all fairness, we had a pretty awesome summer. We had nice trips to Hawaii, North Carolina, California, and Colorado. Aria got to go to camp with her cousins, and had many fun sleepovers with her grandmother. We had fun swimming/tubing/sailing at Lake Cypress. And of course there was Pool.

But let's be honest. Almost every fond memory I have from the summer is bookended by screams of, "Mammmaaaa, YaYa hit me!! Mommmmm, Caroline is not sharing!! Saraaaaaaaaaaaah, no more internet shopping!!"

After awhile, it really started to get to me. Especially that last one. But I digress.

I actually began the summer with a list of goals I wanted to accomplish, or more specifically, wanted Aria to accomplish. Here they are, in no particular order:

1 - Learn to make your bed
2 - Learn to write your name
3 - Learn to swim
4 - Solve the Pythagorean theorem

Okay, maybe that last one was a stretch, but it puts the others into perspective. They're doable, right?

See for yourself:

So my Mom pride is kicking in a little. Okay, a lot. I'm so proud of my Princess A. She met and exceeded all of my (reasonable) goals for the summer, and is even on to learning to read, thanks to a little help from this book. The first day of school arrived, much to my delight, and we have now settled into a little routine. We have some exciting things on the horizon too: Aria's first Clemson game, Aria's first soccer game, and Caroline's second (SECOND???) birthday.