give me all the milestones.

the end of the summer and beginning of the fall has more than its fair share of milestones in our house. it has happened this way every year for a while, and yet i'm still not used to it.


in the middle of august our iris-bug was baptized, and she stole the show up on the stage. she thought it was the greatest thing ever to be up in front of the entire congregation.



then, near the end of august our monkey went back to school as a first grader. no longer the youngest in the school, no longer unsure, just a little nervous, but all ready to go.



and a few days later our nugget turned 5. five. it still blows my mind. four still seems so young, and while adele has always been a teenager at heart - i still can't fully comprehend her five-ness.


then there's the fact that our 13th wedding anniversary was monday, and adele's first day of TK was yesterday.



it's such an amazing gift that at the end of all of these milestones happening back-to-back-to-back i have the space to sit and process them today. maybe not fully, but a start is far better than the alternative.

all of these things are expected yet surprising. because of course our kids get older. of course they go on to the next age, and the next grade. of course. but seeing them from day to day makes it hard to see it sometimes. it's hard to see them grow when it happens so incrementally right in front of you.

and it doesn't surprise me in the least that peter and i are still married after 13 years. but it surprises me that 13 years have already gone by since we vowed to stand by each other until we return to dust. it surprises me that even though i still feel like i have my whole life in front of me, and we still dream our dreams together, we have lived a lot of life since we jumped into this life together.

i know this is a bit of a non-sequitur, but sitting here thinking about all of these things makes me so grateful. i don't know if i could ever adequately express how incredibly grateful i am that grace has found me, and buoys me up daily. every day that i examine my life - even on the days when i know that i've screwed up royally {which happens on far more days than i'd like to admit} - i still know that i'm covered by grace. i am covered by the grace of God.

not a day goes by when i am not grateful for my husband and my children.
most days i'm exhausted and don't feel like i've been enough or done enough, but i'm still grateful.

because even though i still don't know what i want to be when i grow up - even though i still don't know exactly which direction i'm going, or what's coming down the pike - i know that i'm loved and that i have so many people, and so many things for which to be grateful.

on the easy days, on the hard days, on the celebratory days, on the days of mourning, and all of the days in between, i can find gratitude.

so even though the milestones all piled up like this can be challenging to process, there's also part of me that wonders how well i would stop to process any of them if they didn't keep smacking me in the face, one right after the other.

for instance: this year for adele's birthday most of her presents from us came by way of a shopping trip that she and i went on together, just the two of us. she got to pick out the rest of her fall wardrobe, some legos, and have chick-fil-a for lunch with no siblings around. and for a girl who has been opinionated about her clothes since before her second birthday, she had a blast. and i had a blast right along with her. but if it weren't for all of these things together, i'm not sure i would have really thought through all of the sweetness of that time with just her.

each of my kids have taught me so much. i've had to be a student of each of them, and sometimes that has been incredibly hard {and it will continue to be at times}, but it also allows me to love them how they are and where they are. imperfectly, yes. completely imperfectly. but i hope i can always try - at least try - to meet them where they are and go from there. i hope they can look back on their childhood and know that they were always loved exactly where they were, even in their messiest moments.

today, i'm thanking God for the milestones. every last one of them.
even the hard ones.
even the ones that make me feel old.
even the ones that remind me i could be farther along and doing more.

time passes whether i acknowledge it or not. whether i pay attention or not.
so today i'll stop and look. i'll reflect, and acknowledge, and i'll be grateful for all the milestones.


xo

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