sleep

i should be in bed.  i should be asleep.  but i fell asleep on the couch earlier in the night as the boys were doing their draft for fantasy football and it was enough to keep me from falling asleep now.  just enough sleep to trick my body into thinking it needs to be up.

i lay down and my mind is racing.  the milestones passed, the family who is hurting, the friends who are mad, why did that person call?  and so i get up to return to a place to write it down.  somewhere i haven't been in months, but find myself wanting to come back to. 

my sweet alaythia started kindergarten last week.  the long awaited time when she too would get to go to school.  she was so ready, so happy.  in fact the second day of school she was completely dressed (shoes and all) by 6:15am.  i'm one of those people that processes before something happens.  the weeks leading up to a big event i'll spend hours and hours working through all my issues, every scenario.  and when the time comes i'm ready, i'm present, i've got it all worked through in my head.  but my life has not lent itself to that in the weeks leading up to alaythia's first day of school.  it's been hectic and i've only been able to thinking about the next most urgent mountain to climb.  and so that is why on the way to school that first morning i cried.  why after i walked her into class i cried.  why i continued to cry all day.  i was so happy and she was so ready.  but i was caught off guard.  i had to mourn a season of her life being over and rejoice at a new one beginning.  cry good tears of a rich full life that i lead.

our baby turned three a few weeks ago.  not a baby anymore, but as i like to whisper in her ear every so often, she'll always be my baby.  since february when every other sibling in the house got a birthday sophia has prayed and thanked God, each night at dinner, that she was going to have a birthday and that she was going to be three.  and boy i was not going to disappoint.  i wanted to do it up big and do it up right and celebrate sophia to the max.  it was her first birthday that she KNEW it was her birthday.  balloons and the color blue.  singing and facetime.  presents and friends.  she spent the day dancing through each event, giddy with all that surrounded her.  i cherish sophia, always have.  i soak up her everything because she'll be the last to do it.  and i'm so grateful for her.  on the morning we dropped matt, isaiah and alaythia off at school she held my hand as we walked out of the school and as i cried she did a happy dance that we were going to have a 'date day' all day long.  and she was a salve to my heart.  a gift and reminder of the sweet toddler girl i now get alone time with.

 life keeps happening, things keep moving forward.  and i'm grateful.  thankful.  these people that God has given me to live life with are really extra-ordinary!