Parent Watch Day (Patterson)

Today is rained and rained and rained.  It also thundered ... VERY loudly often.  The weather suited my mood perfectly (even, unfortunately, the thunder).  Our day started off wrong ... well, let's back up ... yesterday ended wrong, which bled into starting this morning and starting it wrong and so it went.  I didn't get Kate and Olivia to MMO, and school was less than anything of what I would have intended it to be.

YUCK.  

Just one of those days.

As I sit here right now, the rain is quietly falling outside and children are sleeping quietly in their beds.  Even Richard is sleeping on our bed ... in a very distorted fashion, I might add, but quiet, peaceful.

Richard did come home early today (he worked very late last night and left very early this morning) so that I could take Parker and Patterson to dance.  It was Parent Watch Week for Patterson's class.  I missed the last one, as I was unable to figure out what to do with the other 3 girls during this time.  Anyway, I was thrilled to be there.  First, driving there without the whining of two little ones just up from nap was all too enjoyable.  And second, it was so nice to see another one of our girls flying solo.  Patterson craves attention, yet doesn't know what to do with it once she has it.  She is the middle child ... the "creme filling" as one of the Chapel Childcare workers at Fort Leavenworth used to call her.  Patterson is the child that you want to eat up and strangle simultaneously.  

Patterson ... oh, Patterson ... Patterson is going to have a lot of energy for Christ's Kingdom when the rest of us have nothing left to give:)!

It was a treat to see her and her fellow ballerinas for 30 minutes this afternoon.

Finally, we had just a little bit of school to finish up after dinner tonight.  As I sat with Patterson reviewing her flash cards, and I looked up to see Parker diligently finishing her grammar ... I had one of those moments where I knew my focus for the day and for many of the days this past year has been everything but right.  It was one of those moments where I am reminded of WHY am I teaching them.  Why?  Glen Beck recently mentioned on his show that education is not a right, but a privilege.  What a great reminder.  It is a privilege and it is not just about stamping information on a little ones brain, but impressing God's truths on their hearts.  I don't know if I will ever get back to the teacher I was to Hanson Ellis.  Well, let me correct that .. not to the teacher that I was, but I don't know if things will ever be like they were.  I'm sure the answer will be no.  There is no way they can be and they shouldn't, really.  These are the circumstances God has given me for His glory.  He has created our family and our children purposely for His purposes.  Letting go is so difficult, but moving forward is something I have got to come to grips with.  And that seems so simple, and it is, but it's funny how sin makes everything complicated.  I never dreamed I'd covet my own life:), but essentially, that is what I do often.  I miss so much the way things "used to be" or the way "things were," that I miss the joy of the now.  I don't know ... maybe my life is really as messed up as I think:) ... or maybe I'm just too tired to continue starting over.  I don't know, I don't think it is the starting over that I'm weary of ... but the repetition of the same struggles and the same mistakes in those struggles.  It is so easy to look at the Israelites in the Old Testament and mock the cycle they just couldn't seem to get out of.  Obey God, receive His blessings, forget the blessings He had given them, disobey Him, receive punishment, turn back to God ... etc.  So easy to see it with them and think how silly they were to forget the lessons learned and miss the blessings that they had.  But I am just like that.  

J.U.S.T. like that.

It is quiet and I'm thankful for the quiet.

Richard's home and I'm thankful for that.

Patterson isn't where I'd like her to be intellectually, and she's not as calm or quiet as I need her to be,

but she's learning, she curious and she's happy.  

I'm thankful for Patterson.

God made her to glorify Him and He uses her to humble me not only in difficult ways, but sweet ways as well.