Saying Goodbye to Preschool

Dear God,
Tonight I sat my laptop down on the table right on top of the tears I just cried. Tomorrow is Kate's last day of preschool, but the thing that really is making my heart split tonight is that tomorrow is MY last day of preschool. For the last 6 years, MCC has been a constant part of our lives. Since Caroline was just 2 years old and I was new to town. I haven't really lived here without that sweet school and the angel women who give their lives to the children and families there.

The women in those hallways have helped me become a mother. They were so patient with me when I was nervous. They closed their doors and let me vent when I was scared. They prayed over us. They wrote us notes. They took my babies out of my arms and taught them how to be in a group of kids. They taught them to share. To sing. To play. To paint. To use glitter (because you know God  I can't do glitter). To be silly. To count. To read. To write their names. To love you. To walk in a line. To open their own lunchbox. To use manners. To speak in public. To walk confidently out their doors and into the doors at Cary Elementary. They've been the women who have stood beside me when my baby was pushing boys. And biting people. They've spoken the truth to me about the hardest pieces of parenthood. They've also celebrated all the little things. They've taught me, by example, how to be little with my girls, how to slow down and see the tiniest changes in their lives. They've taught me how to listen to children - which is so so different from listening to adults. They've been our village.

And now. Tomorrow. I have to walk out of those doors for the last time, and I don't know how to do it. I have the most grateful heart, and I have an abiding faith that God orders our steps. But that's all I've got. And I hope it's enough. Thank you God for sweet, sweet Methodist Children's Center. Thank you for teachers past and teachers present. Thank you for Alicia,  and Beth. Thank you for Elizabeth. Thank you for Pat and Laura, Cindy, Crystal and Amy, Jessica, Anne and Shelly. Thank for you Mr. Bill and Susanna. Thank you for Peggy and Ashley. We love this group, and we love you God. We're so so so crazy grateful. And we will miss this sweet, tender, thin space.

Amen.

Gratitude and Melancholy

Loving God, 

It's nearly ten o'clock in the evening on the second day of 2019, and I'm filled with a mixture of gratitude and melancholy. I'm grateful for all you've given me, so much of which is front and center during December each year. I have this amazing husband who I'm walking into 10 years of marriage with in just a few weeks. He's been so home for the last week and a half. I heard him really laugh. I watched him sleep, and wake slowly without an alarm. I watched this man's man delicately navigate difficult emotions with our daughters. I felt my heart swell (never believed that was a real thing until well after having children) when I peeked my head in as he read Harry Potter to Caroline late into the night well past bedtime. I saw a smile I thought he'd lost when he rolled on the floor with our new puppy. Thank you for Dan. Thank you for him being home. Thank you for the people who stayed on the job so he didn't have to. Thank you that he has a heart for me and the girls, and wants to dig in deep in this home. These girls, God. These challenging, brilliant, beautiful, wild girls. Thank you God that I get to be their mom, get to be the hostess of Christmas in this home. Thank you for their enormous hearts and dreams. Thank you for their health and safety. Thank you that we had these days at home together - full of Grinch pajamas and make believe, singing and begging for hot cocoa. I see so much of you in each of them, God. And our families - so many special moments with our parents, our siblings, our niece and nephew, our grandparents, aunt and uncle. I saw the 90 year olds dancing. I watched the baby find the elf and show her biggest happy face. I saw the 9 year old light up when Santa knew about the game he mentioned. I saw my grandpa in my dad's traditions. Saw my mom remember all the little special details that 'make it real' - nearly 40 years running. We threw birthday parties. We went on little adventures. We shared meals, drinks, gifts, tears and stories and we loved one another well. Thank you for all the tiny little minutes. Thank you for the hard parts. 

Am I present enough? 

Am I grateful enough? 

These babies will get out of the car in the morning and go back to school. There will be 4 hours tomorrow with no kids at all. I'm not ready to turn them back in - to let go of last moments of Christmas and let it slip into memory. It goes so fast. Impossibly fast. But these days we lived in the sweet sanctuary of Christmas - the warm, slow, cozy pace of a sacred time that the world interrupts less than the rest of the year. And now I steel myself for the return of another pace. A pace I love, but I forget I love when the tree gets cut and the ornaments hung, when the house smells of cinnamon and orange peel, when the mailbox is full of cards from the collection of people I love across this country. God tonight I ask that you carve a piece of my heart just right to fit the feeling of Christmas inside. I want to be the peace and promise of Christmas for people who don't have it, or forget it once those emails start arriving again. I want to be it for my husband, and my girls. I want to remind myself.

Thank you God for the gift of your Son. For the hope of the world. The joy of relationship with you. Thank you for these days. 

Amen. 

Us. And these windows.

New addresses. Your togetherness. Beautiful young ladies and handsome little gentlemen. Your travels. Your joys. Miracle babies. Your sweet homes. The places I've lived. Our shared childhoods. The memories we've made together. The ways we're aging. The last time I saw you laughing. The last time you called me crying. The common places that tie us together. Joy. Some pain. The people you've added, and those we've lost. Life.

Christmas cards are my very favorite thing that happens all year because of everything they let me see. And feel. I monopolize the mail in December because I want to feel it all - seeing the return address, opening the flap, pulling out your card and those first turns of my lips into a grin. And the "us" of our past rushes through my mind like a card catalogue of all our time together. And then I'm just so grateful for you, and for our "us."

Thank you for sending us all your cards and all these feelings. I'm a feeler, and a "words-of-encouragement-er" and seeing y'all and reading your messages absolutely fills my heart in a very real way. Seriously - if you haven't felt a full heart before, it's worth finding. It's like a tea kettle that's about to whistle - warm, and on purpose, and just right. For those who we don't see all the time, I miss you. For those who work with Dan - thank you for being his people and moving forward one of the most God-centered secular companies I've ever known. For our family, we love you and are so grateful for you. For new friends, welcome, and thanks for welcoming us into your lives. For old friends, a knowing smile and all my love.

When I sat down to write this, I felt like I had so much more than this to say - but it turns out, I just wanted to tell you thank you. Thank you. For all of it. I hope I always find my way to gratitude and humility as quickly as I do this year - I feel God and his peace and mercy all over it.

I told you on our card we'd be praying for y'all this Christmas. And we have. And I will again. I invite you to pray this prayer for your Christmas card people too.

Dear God,
Father you sent yourself to dwell among us as your son - and you knew that concept of family would mean something to us. You built a crew around you to teach and support and do life with - and you knew that concept of community would mean something to us. You modeled the importance of family and Christian friends from the beginning. Thank you for that. Thank you for the rest and acceptance a community can bring.

Thank you for our people, for our Christmas card people and all they mean in our life. I lift each family to you and ask for your blessing in their life. Please show them (and us) how to walk in the center of Your will for their lives, show them mercy, grow wisdom in their minds, and compassion in their hearts. God work through these people to extend the hope and joy You offer the world. Please teach each one of us how to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with You.

God please bind us together in love, in kindness, and in You. In Your name, I pray this Christmas.
Amen.

Dear God,
You are the creator of all things. You gave the world it's rhythm and timing and orchestrated the dance of nature to perfection. I know you make no mistakes and do nothing by accident. Thank you for our family. For each strength and weakness, for the easy pieces and the challenging spots. Thank you for building us to need one another and to give and take from one another.

God the further I get on this motherhood path the more I know I do not know. I also realize every day how deeply I've come to rely on your guidance, your assurances and your confidence to keep moving. Please create in me a newer, deeper relationship with you so that I can keep growing in my trust with you and working toward living the life you've set out for me.

Thank you Lord for your patience with me, for your guidance and wisdom, and your peace which passes all understanding.
Amen.

The last first day of preschool

Dear God,
Caroline Jo is heading to 4 day 4's tomorrow. Thank you for the preschool that's become our home in these last two years, and for the men and women who give so much of their hearts and time to making it the place it is. Thank you for the families we've met there, the children Caroline calls her classmates and friends and their moms who have become my friends too. God you've answered so many prayers for us through our preschool. Thank you that we feel like we belong there.

As CC starts her last year of preschool I am humbled and compelled to my knees to ask for your blessings to continue in her life. God please draw her nearer to you each day, claiming her as your own child. Please continue to lay out a path for her to grow, to feel a sense of belonging, to challenge her and nurture her. Please continue to surround her with children who will be true friends to her, and with teachers who guide her according to your will. God please wrap my girl in your love, and allow her health and happiness.

Please God be with Caroline's teachers this year. A class full of 4 year olds must be so challenging. I can't imagine the calling you've placed in their hearts, what a gift they're giving us in these leadership roles. God please give them courage, wisdom, joy and peace this year, please give them the strength they need to lead our children.

I hope I'm not taking it all for granted. I hope I'm not missing the moments or hurrying. Thank you so much for the gift of these two precious girls God. Don't let me mess this up.  :)

Amen.

Wrestling with a 4 Year Old

Dear God,
It's not a joke. Motherhood is not a joke. And God I am praying to you tonight because I had a really hard time. Caroline's will is so strong God, and she can be so convicted and difficult. God tonight she just couldn't handle herself at all, and it pushed me and pushed me and pushed me and I just shut down. God I ask come to you tonight though with just one thing - gratitude. Thank you for Caroline. Thank you for her voice, for her heart, her convictions, her strength, her trust in me that she can push and not break, for our dinner table we gather around, the food that's on it, the house we put them to bed in each night, the community we're raising them in. Thank you God. I am choosing right now to direct my mind toward gratitude and count this life as joy, especially on nights like tonight.
With a sincere, humble intention to set my mind on greater things,
Amen.

Bravery

Dear God,
These girls. These girls God have just shaken me up. My whole life, almost everything I think, everything I do. There's so little that's EXACTLY the same as it was 4 years ago before I became a mother. It's not a loss of self, it's not a bad thing, it's just so so different. And it's made me think of the ways I want to be stronger, the things about myself I want to work on. One thing, I want to be more brave. Because I want my daughters to be more brave than I've been.

God I pray that you develop in Kate and Caroline a spirit of bravery, and confidence. Not in a way that keeps them from needing support and community, but in a way that makes them convinced they're capable, that enables them to do BIG things. Please Lord give me the same, brave confidence that lets me be the person you envision me to be.

Thank you God for these girls, for Dan, for our family.
Amen

Dear God, and Dear Caroline

Dear God,
Thank you so much for the blessing of Caroline in our lives. Thank you for 4 healthy years. Thank you for choosing us to be her parents, for the amazing growth we've had as a family since she was born 4 years ago.

God, there's just so much to talk to you about with Caroline. God I have so many hopes for her. Please continue to pave a path for Caroline, opening the doors for her in the places we should lead her. Please keep giving us wisdom as her parents, and grant us patience as we face challenges. God Caroline is Big. I pray that this next year you help us each to take a step toward each other to solve problems. Please God help us to teach Caroline what it means to yield, without squashing the beautiful, strong spirit that makes her so unique. God please help us to pour compassion into Caroline so that her leadership qualities feel more like leading and less like bossiness. God please occupy Caroline's heart and mind with your ways, and help her to grow as a reflection of Christ in this world.

God you know Caroline's changed everything about everything. As it is with a first child, she'll always be the very first page our book about parenthood. Please bless her God with the abundance this life you designed can offer.

Amen.


Dear Caroline,

Oh Caroline. It's been a year sweet wild child. This year we moved into our home on Drawbridge, and you've been in 3 day 3's at the MCC at FUMC - Cary. Your teachers are Ms. Crystal and Ms. Amy. You have a letter of the week and ALL YEAR you've been waiting for letter P so you could take in a couple of your purses. You take ballet on Tuesday mornings with Ms. Sarah at Graceful Expressions, your favorite leotard is "elsa blue" and you were Tinkerbell for Halloween. Your favorite sitters are Ms. Lindsey and Ms. Madeline. You'd like to be a dentist one day. You say a dentist would be good because you could be a mom and a dentist, and you'd help people with their teeth. You moved into a big girl bed, your hair finally started really growing, and you're 100% cured of any form of shyness that previously existed. Your favorites: the color gold, macaroni and cheese, ovaltine in milk, dresses and skirts, Cousin Drew, Sophia the First, Call Me Maybe, Shake it Off and Joy to the World. You love craft projects, painting, making bracelets for your friends, manicures and pedicures, singing, dancing, taking showers, going to the dentist, all things princess, working in the yard with your dad, wildflowers, sunflowers, potting flowers, talking on the phone, taking care of baby dolls, tea parties, adventures with Aunt Rhonda and playing dress up. You're not allowed to wear clippity clop shoes on the stairs.

Ready for this sister? You have a husband. You met him while building snowmen together in Africa. His name is Jerry and you have 5 children: Tomcat, Snoopy, Paisley and Abby and Ellie (the twins). Jerry is a referee for Major League Soccer, and Tomcat is currently away at boarding school. Tomcat and Snoopy love to climb trees.  We were watching the World Cup this year and you saw Jerry on TV. You said he was playing soccer, but pointed to the ref. I told you that he was actually a ref and that the ref doesn't play during the game, he just makes sure everyone follows the rules. You laughed, put your hand on your hip and said "oh, that sounds just like Jerry."  You have your old "married dress" and your "married ring" and you bring them out from time to time to show your "trildren". Y'all had a dog, Soapy, who you lost this year. You came down one day after nap and told me he'd passed away. Sometimes when we're out, you'll look around for a minute and ask where Jerry went. Most of the family imagines with you and plays along. It's wonderful and amazing sweet CC, and I absolutely love this world you've built. I'm sure it'll be going away before too long, and I'll be sad when it does.

One night this year we were praying and at the end of your prayer you said "God bless mommy and daddy, Caroline and that ugly little baby and Baxter and all of our family and all of our friends." You were referring to Kate honey. And didn't skip a beat.

I asked you to clean up your booster and your drink the other day and you burst into "It's a Hard Knock Life" - from Annie. What? How do you think so fast?!

Catchphrases: Actually, Here's the Deal, calling dad "Chief" or "Boss",  Boom Goes the Cannon, You'll get over it, What in the World.

CC you're a handful my child. You love to talk, and have a hard time knowing when to just listen. You have 100 ideas every single day and the energy to do most of them. You're not a huge fan of cleaning up. You insist upon picking out your own clothing - you're opposed to ruffles, zippers, ruching, objectionable buttons, pleats and layers. UNLESS they're on a tutu or an otherwise highly-desirable article of clothing. You hate putting your head under water and really fuss over wearing tennis shoes. You stomp, and pout, and say "I'm So Mad" on the regular. Here's what Ms. Pat (2's teacher) told me about you. She said "Caroline's a leader - but leadership without compassion is bossiness, so just keep teaching compassion, and she's going to be great". And I believe it. So, you little nut job, I keep trying, I keep showing the boundaries around manners, etiquette and healthy living, and praying that I'm getting them right.

You know what I see when I look at you Caroline? I see your amazing imagination, your love of life, your endless energy, your sweet words that seem to sometimes come out of nowhere, and an amazing depth that's much much greater than your 4 years should allow. Keep up the wild life little C, it looks good on you.

I love you so much it hurts.
Mom

Dear God, and Dear Kate

Dear God,
Today is Kate's first birthday. Thank you God for the precious gift you've given us in Kate. Thank you for a year of health and growth, of love and joy, and for the gift of witnessing a baby turn into a toddler. God, to me, there's no other place in the world where you power and majesty is as clear as it is in birth and childhood.

As Kate's heavenly Father, I know your love and hope for Kate is even deeper than my own. God I pray that you continue to work within Kate to grow her into a faithful follower of Christ. I rejoice that you've claimed her as your own, even in these years before she can really even understand what that means. Please guide Dan and me in parenting, give us the patience and wisdom we need in this journey. God please give Kate a joyful spirit, a tender heart and tough skin.

With gratitude and awe at your marvelous and gorgeous creation,
Amen.

----------

Dear Kate,
Sweet, tiny, happy baby Kate. Happy Birthday beautiful daughter. When I walked into your room this morning you were your usual smiley self, sitting happily in your crib, smiling at your mom and sissy, listening to your happy birthday song. Dear Kate you are a joy and this year has been wonderful. You were born two days before we closed on the house we live in, and you've been so patient and flexible in all the change this last year brought.

We've watched every little "first" you've had - because we don't really think we'll have another baby, and we want to make sure we really absorb your big moments. We've prayed for you, with you, over your laughs, over your cries. We've taken you picking pumpkins and swimming, family dinners, trips to Grandma's at the beach. You've learned so much this year - from those tiny new things like opening your eyes and learning to smile, to the bigger things like crawling and sign language, eating real food, feeding yourself. We have loved watching you grow little girl. And this was the year of your life that you and I will spend the most time together of ANY year in the future. Can you imagine that? This year you won't remember? Just read this one day and know how much I loved all our minutes tiny Kate. Even the ones in the wee hours of the morning.

Kate you're amazing. You love cheese. I mean LOVE cheese. You crawl and scoot all around this house. You're starting to want to go up the stairs. You pull up on the dining room window and stand there and stare at the backyard and the trees. You don't cry much, but you get deeply wounded when daddy and I tell you 'no', and you do like to try to snatch things from your sister a lot. You love Baxter, and climb all over Reese too. You find the tiniest little pieces of things on the floor and taste them all. Yuck. You imitate us a lot - actions, sounds - it's so cute. Your first and only real word so far is dog, and we don't even have one silly girl. Sometimes you pet your little friends and call them dog too. I bet they love that. You go to the Y, and to Sunday School, and sometimes stay with our family members. You're so easy about that. You give kisses, high fives, wave bye bye. You sign for "more" and "all done". You have a purple blankie, a stuffed pig named Polly, and don't like to wear shoes or socks at all. You have five teeth and far more hair than sissy did at age 1. You love splashing in the bath and sucking your thumb. You fall asleep every time we want you to, and always, ALWAYS wake up happy.

Lovely Kate, here's my birthday wish for you: I wish you keep your simple, easy joy, I wish your heart becomes full of compassion and love, and I wish your mind to be curious, driven, and bright.

I've loved these first year days baby girl. And I love you way more than you'll know, at least until you're a momma yourself one day.

Love,
Your grateful mom

Travel

Dear God,
I'm getting ready to travel this weekend, and the girls with be with Dan and their grandparents. It takes a lot to get ready for a weekend like this, and it's made me think about the girls and the travel they'll do in their life. God I ask that you open up Kate and Caroline's lives to the many experiences offered in this beautiful world. Please keep their minds and hearts open and interested in learning about people all over the world, and in seeing this planet you created. God please bless them this weekend, and always, with safe travel, positive attitudes and an excitement for what lies ahead.
Thank you God for my little travelers, please hold their little hearts in your hands.
Amen

Fixed Gaze

Dear God,
I come before you tonight offering my most sincere thanks and humble praise for who you are. Thank you God for this life, for the blessings you've given us, and the opportunity to direct our lives to you.

God the girls are doing so well. Kate's 10 months, all of the sudden not an infant anymore. Caroline's 3 going on 13, and life is just moving so quickly God. God there are really deep stirrings in my soul about the type of mother I want to be, the example I want to be for my girls. And God there are also all these things I want for them in this life - friends, a great school, happiness, talents, manners, respect, laughter, joy, depth, intellect, success - and sometimes I confess I get so focused on trying to perfect myself, or trying to chase after all those things, that I forget the most important thing: fixing my eyes on you. I believe God that when I fix my eyes on you, the rest of life will follow. God tonight I pray that you force my gaze your way. I pray you keep me from looking to other mothers, other families and the way they live their lives, I pray you keep me focused on you. I know comparison and self-doubt are not your ways, and I want to walk in your way.

God I ask you to guide and direct me, Dan, Caroline and Kate. God I ask guidance for our families, our friends, our church, the people with whom we do business and our neighbors. God please show up big in these places, please take the evil and wrongdoing and set it aside, please fix all of us on living the types of lives that please you. God let us not waste a moment of this life you've given us, and keep us mindful that each day could easily be the last.

Thank you Lord for the peace and joy I feel filling my life.
Amen

Laying down my worry

Dear God,
I offer you praise for who you are. You are mighty, powerful, creator and savior and for that I give you thanks. God this last week I feel evil trying to creep into the corners of my heart - I've been nervous, anxious and fearful Lord. Tonight I offer all of my fears and worries to you God. I lay them down before you and ask you to take them from me and wrap me in your grace, salvation, confidence and protection. God please don't let me feel worry any more.

Lord I also thank you for the work you're doing in our lives. Please continue to help us grow friendships and community for both me and Dan, and Caroline and Kate. Please surround us with Christian families we can enjoy this life with. God please help me to feel at home here, to settle down and know I'm loved.
Amen.

My Tiny Kate

Dear God,
I've been talking to you about Kate for quite some time now - though I've written little. God I know you've heard my heart and my cries for this second baby of ours. Lord thank you for the gift you've already given us, even as we wait these last few weeks for her to be born. God the sum of the desires I have for Kate is VAST, and selfish, and wrought with the kind of intensity that only a mother can have for her children.
God please allow Kate to fully develop both mentally and physically before she's born. Please make her a bright child who is ready to come into this world when she is born. More God than my physical comfort, our emotional readiness, or any other factor God, please bring her when the time is right. God please make our labor and delivery process safe for both me and Kate. God please be present with me through the process to keep me from fear and harm. God please be present with Kate and allow her birth to be peaceful and healthy.
God thank you for our family, for the time you've given us, and for the promises you have for our future. God I ask that you wrap all 4 of us in your arms, and also bind us to one another. God please keep the spirit of our home focused on you, focused on joy and peace, and on being a light in this world. Lord thank you so much for the many blessings you've given us, and please God bring our tiny baby Kate to us safely and healthfully. And please remember Caroline in the process, and give her what she needs to be a confident child who is secure in her place in this family. Please give me and Dan the wisdom to care for ourselves, for one another, and our children in the kind of balance that only you can direct.

Amen.

Changed.

Dear God,
I'm so grateful for the child you've blessed us with, and so in awe of the way she's growing. It's amazing to think of her as your creation - how in less than 3.5 years you've grown her from absolute nothingness into this amazing, wild, chatty, creative human that runs around my house. I truly stand in awe of her. I adore her, I would give anything for her. But it's a mixed bag. And I know you know this God, because you are a father, and because you created us as humans, and because you know my heart - even before I still myself to pray.

God tonight I was thinking of my pre-child life. When people say "Oh having a child changes everything...", it's really hard to know what that means. I don't think you really can know, until you're a parent and you're living in that space. And sometimes that change is hard - for us it's meant sacrifices. Of time, money, travel, selfishness. And yet I look at friends I know who are struggling to have a baby and know that they'd trade anything they have to have this sacrificed life I'm describing. It's not that I want it differently, and I'm most certainly not complaining. I just feel so deeply that having had a child has changed me in deep, serious ways. And today I had that changed feeling ALL day. And I trust that you know this - that it's your plan for our lives. That you have paved this parenting path. I trust that you have and will rewrite, restore, and renew the freedoms that I long for - in different ways than I had them before.

God please keep my heart focused on love. God please keep me focused on the positive. And Lord more than anything, please strengthen the bonds between me and Dan, and between each of us and our child. Please bind our hearts to yours.

Amen.

To Make You Feel My Love

Dear God,
Tonight as I was putting Caroline down to bed I was telling her that I love her - when we have a hard time, and when we have a good time. No matter what, I always love her. And I was reminded of a song that I loved a long time ago. At the time, a starry-eyed high school girl, it seemed like a love song, a romantic song. Now, putting my sweet, crazy two year old to bed, it came back to me as a song a mom might sing to her child. God my prayer tonight is that in our family we always have the words to tell each other how much we mean to each other. I pray that my child always knows how loved she is, and how deep and unwavering our love for her is. I also pray that that love carry us through the hardest times, and is strong enough to keep us bound together even when the world, our stress, her age, her friends, 'cool', is trying to pull us apart. God please make her know our love, and show us how to make her feel our love deeply.

Amen.

Lyrics: To Make You Feel My Love (originally written by Bob Dylan, I knew Garth Brooks' version)

When the rain is blowin' in your face
And the whole world is on your caseI could offer you a warm embraceTo make you feel my love.

When the evening shadows and the stars appearAnd there is no one there to dry your tearsI could hold you for a million yearsTo make you feel my love.

I know you haven't made your mind up yetBut I would never do you wrongI've known it from the moment that we metNo doubt in my mind where you belong.

I'd go hungry, I'd go black and blueI'd go crawlin' down the avenueNo, there's nothin' that I wouldn't doTo make you feel my love.

The storms are raging on the rollin' seaAnd on the highway of regretsThe winds of change are blowing wild and freeYou ain't seen nothin' like me yet.

I could make you happy, make your dreams come trueThere's nothing that I would not doGo to the ends of the Earth for youTo make you feel my love.

Hello to God, so glad to see You.

Hello to God, so glad to see You.

These were the words that came singing out of Caroline's mouth from the back seat of the car today on our way home from church. It's a song from our summer music class where we sing "Hello to Caroline, so glad to see you, Hello to mommy, so glad to see you too." And today, she says Hello to God. We went to church for the first meeting of UMW that I've been to since we moved, and I was scared to walk in the door alone. I HATE walking through the door alone when I don't know anyone. HATE. And she was in child care. Apparently Caroline had a better focus on the day than I did, because she saw God when we were there, and I was worried about who would see my ugly flip flops. And who I'd sit with. And what they'd think of me. God thank you so much for a child who simplifies life. Thank you for her reminding me how nice it was to see you today. Thank you for giving us the courage to show up in a place where you'd have us be. It was so so good God to see you today, at church and in the back seat.

Amen.

School

Dear God,
Caroline starts a 2-day-2's program next week. Tonight was our parent orientation. It's both exciting and amazing all at once that she's going to start school. Thank you for the MCC and the people who run it. Thank you for a community that still believes it's important to raise up children in a Christian environment. Thank you for the teachers who have a passion for our little ones. Please let school be a great experience for both me and for CC, and please let it be a place where we both find friends and connections. God I trust that you are guiding our steps Lord - please continue to pave our path that we're heading in a direction you'd choose for us. Thank you God for my family, for this school, and for this day. Please teach me how to live in each one, without fear of those that follow.
Amen.

New Steps

Dear God,
Our move to Raleigh has brought so much change in CC's life. She's done so well adjusting and going with the flow - I wish I had more of that in me. We found out recently that she was accepted to a 2-day preschool for the fall. I'm excited about it and it seems like she is to. My prayer is that the school is a good fit for her, that she enjoys her teachers, that they nurture her and add to her life, and that the time we spend apart is good for her, that she doesn't resent it or wish to be home. Please God hold my girl in your arms, today and EVERY day Lord. Please remember her and bless her.
Amen.

Potty Training

Dear God,
We're potty training, and in the last few days it's gotten pretty challenging. It seems like Caroline is struggling with me giving her direction to use the potty. I'm praying today that she returns to her good potty behavior, that she enjoys being a big girl on the potty and that she feels in control of herself with respect to using the potty. God please keep her from having accidents, and help us get through this phase quickly and successfully.
Amen.

Simply Fun

Dear God,
Caroline has gotten to an age where she can be self-entertaining for a period of time. Yesterday as I was getting dinner ready, she was playing and being silly, even laughing at herself. I wasn't even in the room - she was just simply having fun, by herself. It made me think of what a valuable trait that is - the ability to have fun, by yourself, without anything complicated to entertain you. Today my prayer is that she always has that ability, and that she creates a fun environment for others around her. There are people who are like that, who are fun to be with no matter what you're doing. I pray that you give that to Caroline.

Amen.