I hate it that I am not writing every day on this blog. It was such a great thing for me. I miss summer and the carefree way we spent our time. It is harder because it still feels like summer, with heat that will peel the skin off your body, but the schedule says fall!
However, I can hardly come up with an original thought, or a pithy saying, or a wise insight (if I ever had 'em to begin with). My mind is so filled with Lego Mindstorms and First Lego League, teaching a preschool Bible class, teaching an elementary physics class, and homeschooling my own posse, I cannot think outside the "mommy" box at the moment! It certainly has been a day-to-day existence!
I had a sad moment today. Not truly sad, like illness or death, but a retrospective kind of sad. Our Bible story this week in my little preschool class will be Noah and the ark - always a classic! We are going to sing "Arky Arky". You know -
Rise and shine, and give God the glory, glory
And so on. I started to sing it today for fun, and the Young Adult just looked at me blankly. BLANKLY. Then he said, "Huh?"
I sang that song to him quite a lot when he was little. We did all the motions together (you know, back when I was a more active, dynamic mom who did creative, fun, spontaneous things with her kids). He cannot remember it at all.
Whhhaaaaaaaaah!
It makes me a little sad. I am glad I have these memories tucked safely away in my head to take out and cradle from time-to-time. But it makes me wonder. What does he remember?
Does he remember the countless nights we rocked when he was a baby, when we were all alone and all was quiet. Does he remember how I gazed into his cloudy blue eyes and softly stroked his soft head? Does he remember how I eagerly followed every new achievement he made?
Does he remember all the games I played with him, in order to stimulate this very bright boy? How about the tapes I collected to teach him songs and finger plays. We would sit on the floor and do as many as he wanted, while his little brother toddled around the house.
Our first year of homeschooling, I researched like crazy. Our short school days were filled with creative centers and fun little learning exercises. None of the other boys got that - I was far too tired by the time they reached Kindergarten. Oh, they received a fine education, but the luster of excitement and joy I had the first time around just was much harder to conjur up.
What does he remember? The mad mom? The mom who is always tired? The mom who is on his case about cleaning the bathroom, cleaning his bedroom, cleaning his Scout stuff? The mom who always seems to expect more and more.
Oh, there is plenty of love now, but it exists side-by-side with the rest of it, too. I hope somewhere in there is a memory, maybe faint and dim, of the time when he was the only one, and I was all his.
I am still his biggest fan.
That is what the word "mom" means, after all.
4 comments:
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Now you got me singing - I loved that song when I was younger!!
Katy - I loved it, too! i had a great time singing it with mu preschool class this week, but, sad to say, I got all out-of-breath from all the motions! Pitiful! :)
I remember when I was little my mom had my brother on one side and me on the other while she read story books to us. It's a memory I treasure especially now that she's gone. I'm sure your boy will have memories like mine that are important to him. They will be all his.
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