I probably shouldn't post today. Too first-day-back-at-school maudlin. Too post book-covering and pencil labelling to be really lucid. But I wanted to mark the beginning of another year of learning and a newish year for me of getting a career happening and other things you do when all your littles are at school full time.
Well, I know they were technically all full time last year but I always kept the Preschoolers home for a day a week. So this is the really-oh truly-oh full time year.
We had such good holidays: sun, beach, sleeping in, dresses, nectarines, card games, sleeping in, BBQs, losing track of the date, stories, berry frappes, and sleeping in. There were only a couple of times I counted to see how many days were left until school started. Even then I was too chilled to bother looking up the date until a fortnight ago.
And now they're at desks, pencils in hand, shiny eyed. As all the dust settles on eleven frantic years of small children there are more moments when I see them complete and separate. Leaping boldly from a jetty. Slackjawed in front of the tv. Somersaulting into the pool. Making toast. Bickering in the restroom at the shopping centre. Someone hits 'mute' and 'slow motion' and there they are: four perfectly imperfect, complete beings. They are the best evidence I have that Matthew 5:14 is not just nice prose:
You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. (The Message version)
