Preparing for a new era❤️🌈

My heart seems to be bursting and breaking. Is it possible to have your heart burst with joy and pride while simultaneously breaking from loss?

But honestly I know the bursting will win out. How can it not, this is Charlotte we are talking about!

I registered this sweet one for Kindergarten this week. She is ready for the next step but Brian and I are just trying to keep up. Especially me. I’ve been home with my babies for 8 years, ever since Parker was born. Staying home and caring for our little ones has been my focus and my world for so long. Charlotte going off to school ends that era, the most important and special era I never knew I’d love so much. So the “breaking” part is purely personal, purely inward and a little selfish, but I know totally natural. And it’s CHARLOTTE to top it off, which makes the bitterness of the sweet so poignant. She deserves every second of every milestone of growing up. She is ready and excited for it. Brian and I will catch up, I will figure it out. She will lead us there like she always has. I think I just need to move through these feelings and then we can truly bask in the “bursting” aspect.

Last Friday, Brian and I attended her preschool parent-teacher conference. We knew she was having a great year but we still often find ourselves on the edge of our seat wondering if any treatment side effects will surface. Statistically, the over whelming majority of kids suffer some late term effects but nothing, NOTHING, has surfaced yet that is impacting her at school or home or anywhere! It’s truly incredible! Most of the kids that have been through what she has have one of more of the following issues: hearing loss requiring aids, learning deficits, attention and impulse control issues, behavioral issues, gross and/or fine motor skill issues, eye sight problems, dental problems, various neurological disturbances, sleep disorders, peripheral nerve pain, growth issues, hormonal imbalances, thyroid disease, heart and/or pulmonary problems, liver and/or kidney issues, spinal growth problems, developmental delays, speech delays or problems, infertility, issues that arise during puberty, social issues, secondary cancers....the list goes on and on. This is just some of the list we have been given. And we sit there, eagerly listening to her teacher describe her in all her wonderfulness, in all her ready for Kindergarten 5 year old wonderfulness, and we are hanging on her every word and wondering if there is anything she may see that we don’t. But she smiles at this and says, “No. there is nothing. She is perfect.”

And so I take her to her pediatrician for her 5 year old well check up in which the doctor verifies that yes she is on track and we continued to catch her up on her vaccinations (she says “kindergarten shots right momma? Everyone gets these right?” Yes baby. And you too). And we get her packet together and register her for 2019-2020 Kindergarten where she gets to join her big sister and brother and friends. It’s her turn.

They say we grow with our children. Well I guess I’m a little behind, but I’ll catch up. The week I was beginning my little side business that I had started was literally the week she was diagnosed. I was launching my own company and beginning small with one family music class in our town, and the only one of its kind, as I had become a registered Director and licensed teacher of Music Together. I was preparing for the children to grow and go off to school and thought perhaps this was something I would love to do and could potentially be a future business I could grow. But that was immediately pushed to the side the very week it was launched. Charlotte was sick and needed me. And my eyes have not yet been able to truly turn back towards myself. Oh, I suppose I have been growing some musically as I am singing now in our churches contemporary praise band, and teaching myself some guitar, brushing up on piano and music writing from time to time. It’s a hobby and soul soothing and I love it. But to turn my eyes towards working outside of this little world, where I have cared for these little people so tirelessly and joyfully and at times let’s be honest NOT so patiently but always with love and with the intention of putting them first, it feels a foreign concept to me. 

For the beginning of the next chapter in life for Charlotte simultaneously ends this chapter of mine. And not just the chapter of focusing on Charlotte and her needs which has needed to come first many, many times over the last few years, but also the chapters of me devoting my whole days and self to these amazing little creatures God has gifted to us. I will never for one day regret a single moment I was given to be right there with them every day. And I will forever be grateful to my husband Brian for helping us make this dream we BOTH had for our children be possible.

So this week, me and my side kick do what we always do even amid all of my emotions. We goof, we play, we explore, we hang with friends, we learn, we snuggle, we create, we chat, and we will keep on keeping on the rest of this year she is home with me. And let’s be honest, these next few months also gives Brian ample time to prepare for my identify crisis that will ensue in a handful of months😆

But this is what we’ve prayed for. Charlotte is growing up. And I guess it’s all going to be okay. Sometimes things may need to break a little and shed, so that something new can grow.

#Charlottestrong #Familystrong

My sweet goofball at lunch with mommy. 

Pure joy

My side kick 

Bowling fun with her besties Brady and Lydia 

Baking something yummy. Measuring chocolate chips with her heart not a cup😆 

Cheering daddy’s Eagles on for playoff Sunday!

She is expressing so much interest in learning the piano. Taylor and Parker have been taking lessons for a couple years now and maybe she is ready to learn a little so we are doing little lessons at home together for now😍 She surprised me recently by playing chords and hearing the way certain items sound when played together...she even noticed a major chord sounded happy and a minor chord sounded sad or scary. She has music in her soul