Lonely, but grateful mother

Today, James started Pre-K. I missed his happy smile the whole time he was gone. No offense to Charlton, but with all my three kids gone to school today, I felt lonely. Thank goodness James' school meets only twice a week. He was so happy and full of stories when he got back. I have never heard James talk so much as he did this afternoon, and I listened attentively to every word he uttered. His Pre-K teacher is a professional teacher, who taught public school in the past, but her passion is kindergarten and preschool. So, she decided she would have a little private school at her house. There are only six children in James' group, and more than half of them are from our ward. Amy and I carpool to help each other.

James was so excited to learn about rabbits today. His teacher had two beautiful bunnies outside in the yard this morning, and the children helped with the feeding and cleaning while learning about farm animals. She also has a big garden, and each child has their own patch to work on, as well as her plants to take care of. Today, James told me they worked on the pumpkins. Isn't this exciting for our little ones?! I can't believe how fast he is growing. It just took a day like today to make me realize he is a big boy. He will be five in three months, and next year he will be attending kindergarten daily. Thank goodness I have another year with him at home. I'm going to enjoy him as much as I can.

After dropping him off, I looked at my list of chores and responsibilities needed to get done, and attacked a few of them. Because I've neglected them for a while for reasons known to everyone who has read my blog for the past three months, I knew it would take me a week to accomplish them. Today, one of the things that had to be done was getting uniforms for my older children. I've been sending them to school in their last year's uniforms, which would be fine normally, but not when your children have grown a lot during the summer.

As I was looking for uniforms, I see these really awesome Scooby Doo pajamas for my boys. I had to get them. For one thing, Jefferson's pajamas are up to his calf now, and he has to have some new ones. Secondly, two months ago, my children just happen upon a Scooby Doo video at the library, and they liked it so much that they watched it obsessively three Saturdays in a row. We even worked out a math problem by using how many times the kids had watched the episodes. When the boys got home from school today, they couldn't wait to put them on. Here is a picture they asked me to take of them in their new pajamas.


As I was driving across town today trying to accomplish my chores and thinking about my children, I felt grateful for them and the joy motherhood brings. My children are very different from each other. Gillian is thoughtful, Jefferson is full of creativity, James is sweet, Charlton is determined, and all of them in the end are alike in their desire to make me happy and proud. We are all like little children. We may all be different, but we all want to make our Heavenly Father happy and proud. When I think of motherhood in those terms, I feel so humbled and grateful to be part of this great work, sharing it with God.