Not the 1st Day of School

So Monday, August 22, 2011 marked the fourth time that school started without me. I can't believe I have been a Stay at Home Mom for 3 years now! My goodness that went by fast! And now I only have 1 year left with my precious baby girl before she goes off to Kindergarten and we have a real 1st Day of School. Each year has been better. The 1st year that my friends went to work on the 1st Day of School and I didn't I cried for days. I grieved the lose of my perfect, part-time school counseling job for a long time. Honestly, I still do, and I think that is mostly because of the way it happened. I was told to either go full-time between 2 school or resign. I couldn't bare the thought of being away from my precious 18 month baby girl that much so I resigned. My last day of work was June 6, 2008. Four months later I found out I was pregnant and Kellyn turned 2. I became a Certified Coach for Parents in May, 2009 and Rhett was born on June 1, 2009. So that first year went by fast and furious not to mention I was busy babysitting my friend's 1 year old that year as well. Then when Rhett was almost 3 months old the 1st Day of School rolled around again and I was so sad, but so grateful and happy that I could be home with my precious baby boy and his big sister every day and not have to miss a thing. And then when Rhett was 16 1/2 months old the 1st Day of School rolled around again and I got sad, but God gave me a great gift that day that snapped me out of it. Rhett took his first steps on the first day of school. If I had been at work I would have missed it, but I wasn't so I didn't! God is so good in His perfect timing and planning. I was worried Rhett was such a late walker but then I understood why God made him wait.

And now here I am as the 1st Day of School rolls around without me again with my 2 precious babies at home. So in honor of today being my fourth 1st day of school to not be working I took the kids to Mardel, got some stuff laminated and a few teachery things and made the kids play school with me.

I taught Kellyn about money 

while Rhett made a "penny snake" on his leg.  :)

I printed out these great printables about the letter B and Ballet from Confessions of a Homeschooler blog.  Kellyn practiced spelling, handwriting and patterns

while Rhett tried :)

Ok, I got this great idea from my friend and college roomie, Kara. While at Mardel I got this dry erase board with lines and some sentence strips to write Sight Words on. So when we go to a restaurant or waiting areas of some sort and need something to do I can hand her a mini book of words for her to practice writing. Today she wanted me to write "children's doctor" while she wrote "dog doctor for animals." I had a blank book of cards (cut up sentence strip) ready to write words on that she asks how to spell. 

We also went to Joanne Fabric that day to get some fabric for a project I found on pinterest. When I told Kellyn this she said she needed to get some ribbon. I had no idea what for. So I let her pick out 2 things of ribbon. During Rhett's nap time she had me wrap one of her pink headbands with white, lacey ribbon. Then she glue this pink hearts ribbon across the top. It turned out really cute! Then she wanted to use the left over lace ribbon to wrap a bow around her pony tail. Again, really cute!

We don't get to water everyday due to the drought and extreme 100 plus temperatures. So when we do get to go outside and water it's fun. But while 3 of us were busy watering the dying grass and potted plants Rhett mowed or course. 

So I miss my job, but I would miss my kids more. I can always go back to work, but they will never be little again. I'm glad I wasn't at work on this day so I didn't miss a moment of their cuteness. This was the first year I wasn't sad to not be going to work. I think I might be getting the hang of this stay at home mom thing. I figured out that I don't have to go to a job to still feel like I am a contributing member to society, I can do that at home now by teaching, training, molding, and producing them. I think I just needed some time to grieve the lose of what I thought my life would be before I could fully embrace where God has called me to be. I mean, I worked so hard to earn my graduate degree in Educational Psychology. It didn't seem fair that I only got to use it for 2 years. But now I see how I am still using it everyday as a mom and a wife and a friend. Thank you God for this great opportunity and taking off the vail of grief so I could finally see your perfect plan in all it's glory.