Lay down with me five more minutes...

These are the words that melted my heart tonight. These are the words that make me know what I am here for. These are the words that send me right back to an eleven year old girl to scoop her up in my arms and tell her--again--how much I love her. These are the words that not so long ago seemed a bit inconvenient at times...how could I have been so wrong.

WARNING: If you couldn't tell--Sappy Post Follows!

I just finished putting a child to bed. A precious little eleven year old girl who was the best surprise of my and my family's life, a girl who still seems so tiny to me and yet it's as if I am watching her grow every minute of every day at a pace that makes me want to scream for time to stop, a girl who is oblivious to anything but the very best the world around her offers, a girl who, for some inexplicable reason and without her knowing it, has taught me the value of being a mom.

Like I said, there was a time when hearing "Please lay down with me five more minutes mom..." resulted in me thinking things along the lines of, "oh my gosh, I have got to get that laundry off my bed...when am I ever going to get the rest of the bills paid...those dishes are never going to get done...if I lay down for five minutes I will be the one falling asleep."

Not any more. I'd take everyone of those times back now if I could. It's not to say that I now have undying attentiveness toward my children at every waking moment. Anyone who knows me knows that to not be the case. However, I would bet a kid or two on the fact that anyone who has known me for very long would also say I am not the same mom I was thirteen years ago when my oldest child was eleven. I may not even be as attentive as often as I was with my other children. BUT my attentiveness is finely tuned, sharpened to a fault and hones in on far fewer trivialities than in the past. Now let's get something straight right now--I deeply love each and every one of my children equally and in a way that only a parent can know...yes, I would stand in front of a moving train for any one of them...well....yeah...I think I would do that. Anyhow, from here on out it goes without saying that I do not love one child more than any other, nor do I value one's existence more than any other. However, with every child, and with every year of motherhood comes more and more enlightenment.

Enlightenment for me tonight was thinking about tonight being next year's tonight, when "my baby" would be entering a school of a thousand strangers. I mentioned that to her (not the "stranger" part, for pete's sake!) and she shared her hesitation; it being a little "scary". I assured her it wouldn't be (at least not nearly as much as it would be for her mother this time next year!), and that I shouldn't have even brought it up because tomorrow she would be Top Dog at her elementary! How exciting. How comforting. How...sad.

Yep, this is a downer, but I got so sad thinking about this next year being (another) last for me. We will have been in attendance at Jarman Elementary for eighteen years. Yes, eighteen years. OK, if I must be totally honest, our family was not represented one of those eighteen years. Only one, the other seventeeen we had full representation of at least one child and sometimes two. Seventeen Meet the Teacher days, seventeen Back To School Nights, seventeen PTA sign-ups, seventeen volunteer forms, seventeen First Days of School and seventeen Last Days of School. Not to mention all the other activities year in and year out over this span of time. As much as I have teased about it, it has been one of the most rewarding, fullfilling experiences of my life, and certainly my kids' lives. So the thought of this being the last year made me cry.

I don't want all my kids to be out there in the big, fat, scary world. I don't want to be looked at funny when I bring their lunch up to the school for the sixth time even though I've told them I will never do that again. I don't want to be a parent of a student ID#. I don't want them to learn about sex, drugs and rock and roll. (ok, we have already had some of those discussions, but in Leave It To Beaver land here it is a bit different than the Land of Reality coming up). I don't want this to be the end of these wonderful, wonderful times.

For all you who know me well enough to know how sappy this all is---you'd better watch out for me...Good Lord, I even mentioned homeschooling! I mean, can you imagine??! When my other kids would start complaining about their school, or the classes or the teachers, that was all I had to say..."well, you knowwwww, I could always homeschool you". I'd say it in the sincerest tone with all the motherly compassion I could possibly muster up. "Uh, nope...no thanks...it will be fine...uh, I can work this out...really...no problem mom, don't worry about it...really". Yep, that's all it would take.

Well guess what...guess who said, "you know, I might want to do that next year mom"! Most amazing part was I thought "oh thank goodness, there's just got to be some good homeschooling websites...maybe even a facebook group".

Alrighty, so clearly this isn't so much about her. It's about me.

It's about the great (and often not-so-great) life of Mom-dom. The ups, the downs, the unepected curve balls. It's about the most valuable and noble and honest and gut-wrenching and spectacular "profession" in the world. Some would say I need a life. I strongly disagree. I have such a full and blessed life that I can't imagine filling it with anything else. That's the problem...I can't imagine. I can't imagine filling it with different things.. I can't imagine what it will be like not walking into that elementary next year and seeing those familiar (seasoned) friendly faces, not getting to know the less familiar (youthful) but equally friendly "newbies", not having my daughter at a school where everyone knows her, knows who she is and what she's like.

You know what it is, it's that I simply can't imagine what The Plan is. That's what this boils down to. I guess a lot of it really isn't my call. I mean, what's He cooking up for me...or us? I know He's not cruel; I know He's got a sense of humor; and I know He's got a plan. I try and do the right thing, I try and think about how things will effect these kids of mine, I think I'm on the right track most times. I guess the "not knowing for sure" part is the part that's supposed to make it all more exciting--make us try and do our very best. However, instead, I find myself looking back and thinking how much I've learned, how many "if I knew then, what I know now"s I have, how valuable my job has really been and how serious a job it is.

But right now I'm just wallowing in the bittersweet moments of this "final" year. I'm hoping that eleven year old girl will ask me to lay down with her five more minutes this time next year too.