Arise, Get Dressed and Go Play Hotwheels!

Yesterday was the first day of school for our younger one and today is the first day of school for our oldest boy...off to university.  Wow, what extremes we have in our family. One child just learning to read and the other doing physics, biology and chemistry.  It's amazing what can happen in just a few years!  It gives me hope!

I reflect back on that first day of school for the oldest boy, 14 years ago.....I called my husband at work because my son just refused to write an "F".  "He won't write an 'F'!"  I cried into the phone. "Relax," my husband said, "let him play hotwheels."  And so I did.  I relaxed, all along the way, and let him learn at his own pace.  We enjoyed our life, without stress, doing the work in between play and just being curious about so many things, and guess what?  He still got in to university!  Without me freaking out on him all the time.  I can't help but think that actually helped him figure out what he wanted to do with his life.  He was free to explore his multiple interests all day long, and trust me, he did.  He was always up to something, and still is.

I have to try to remember this.  Yesterday I was trying to get my 7 year old to do his math, but he kept escaping to lie down with the puppies!  My husband called and I told him, "J keeps escaping to play with the puppies!  He won't do his work!"  "Let him play with the puppies....."  He may as well of said, "Let him play with hotwheels...."  And so I did.  He played with the puppies for most of the day. It's going to be such a small window that we have these puppies here.  I want him to enjoy them.  The work will get done, just like with my other son, in between all the things he's curious about.

However, I still had to have my annual pep talk!  Actually, I give them basically daily, but yesterday's was a particularly good one, if I say so myself!  I had read Jeremiah 1 that morning.  It was describing Jeremiah's call by God to go be a prophet to the nations.  He had lots of excuses why he shouldn't do what God had said, "I do not not how to speak, for I am only a youth."  But God would have none of it.  "Do not say, 'I am only a youth'; for to all to who I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you , you shall speak.  Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the Lord."  What struck me is that we are also called.  Maybe we aren't prophets, but we are moms, students, fathers.....we all have a job to do right now.  For my kids, it is living at home, under our roof, under our rules, in my "school", doing the work I've planned for them.  I've been given the role of helping develop their character, their spirits, their brains!  They just have to do what I say, pretty much!  After God's pep talk to Jeremiah he says, "But you, dress yourself for work, arise, and say to them everything that I command you."  That was our verse for the day - Get up!  Get dressed for school!  And do everything I tell you to!  I loved it!

I hear a very loud alarm going off right now....the kids have to get up early now.  Don't think they'll love that aspect to life this fall, but oh well!  Arise, get dressed and go to work!