First day.

I sent my second boy off to school today. It was with completely mixed feelings, because for one, I didn't have the bad case of nerves that I had last year, when I sent my first off to school. I well remember what a great year we had and knew that school is actually not too bad. It was not unknown anymore. There were more old faces than new. People saying "hi, how was your summer?". All that was great. My boy is only four-and-a-half though, his birthday not being until December. For that reason, it was hard to let him go. He is still my baby. He still needs help opening wrappers, help using the bathroom, and he always needs me when he gets hurt. But I have to say, he did really well. Better than I expected. Which just proves that I need to hold a higher expectation level when it comes to my kids.

He was so brave, didn't cry at all, and walked into the school without me. In my mother's mind though, I thought he seemed a little confused and overwhelmed so I did what any good (insane?) mother would have done and followed him in and showed him where his class and teacher were. I had visions of him wandering the halls not sure where to go. He would've been fine, I know. I just couldn't help myself. When they got home from school, they were so excited to tell me that they share a lunchroom! I was also very excited. Nicholas said, "So Mommy, now I can help Cubba open his wrappers and you don't have to worry about it!" :) My children know me.

All in all it was a great day. Except for poor Amelia... I hadn't counted on her reacting in any way because she's only two after all, but she is much smarter than I realized. (Back to that expectations thing...) Anyway, I had bought her a little school bag a couple of weeks ago, thinking she'd just have fun with it and play with it. She is so proud of it, so I didn't think much of it when she started packing it this morning, with various hair clips, her soother (yes, she still uses one, please don't judge me) and her special Lamby that she carts around. This is normal for her. She proudly got her picture taken with the boys, walked down the sidewalk to school with a big smile on her face and confidently started walking into school when we told Jacob to go in. At that point we finally realized, this girl thinks she's going to school. Lucas picked her up and told her she had to stay with Mommy and Daddy. The look on that little girl's face! She started crying, but it was more than that. It was almost like we betrayed her, tricked her, led her down the garden path. I never meant to do that, I just never realized that my two year old was taking everything in and just assumed she was going to school too. Poor soul. She also had a harder time without Jacob than I would have guessed. She was pretty clingy and weird today and I guess we are both going to have to adjust. I think once we settle into a routine, it's going to be a lot of fun with just the two of us.

Yes, it was a good day overall. I am so thankful for this answer to prayer. As a mom who is slightly hesitant to send my kids to school at all, but knowing it's the best decision for our family right now, I look for little signals that we are doing the Lord's will. I think we are. His grace is evident and has been from the very first day we started down this road last year. I know there will still be days that are hard. We had hard ones last year too. There will be days when I question, days when the kids will fight me and say they don't want to go, and maybe even days with lots of tears and struggle. But I feel it, deep down inside of me, an undercurrent of peace that this is the right decision for right now.