Half My Heart

Summer 2010 officially ended today as I dropped Mattie off at her first day of Pre-K4. Excited doesn't begin to describe how she was feeling about getting back into the swing of school. No tears from my baby. And surprisingly, no tears from this mama either. I can easily, like any mother, get caught up in the fact that my baby is no longer a baby, that this is our last year at our church preschool, that in one short year I will be taking her to a big school with big kids and big rules and real homework. But, I'm choosing not to get immersed in that emotion, and rather I'm choosing to be excited with her. We were both giddy as we walked into her school this morning. I got a quick picture, an even quicker kiss goodbye, and then she was off to start her day and reconnect with her buddies. It was perfect.


This summer I received an unexpected gift in the form of time spent with Mattie. Since Matthew is a coach, he starts back to work earlier in the summer than regular teachers, which leaves us not having an option for childcare for Mattie for the latter part of summer other than daycare. But, after some discussion, we decided this summer to forgo daycare and juggle her days between her grandmothers and me, and it worked out very well.

Since mid-July, in addition to days spent with grandmas, she has spent quite a bit of time at work with me, which surprisingly enough has been wonderful and not a burden. The office right next to mine has been empty for sometime, but it's set up with a desk, chair, tables, etc. And it connects to my office, so it was the perfect setup to have her there with me, but not right under foot. She would stay in "her office" and pretend she was at work too. Each day she would come in and spend lots of time cutting paper, stamping things, taping things, paper clipping things, stapling things...basically going nuts with office supplies. After lunch, we would come back to work, each go to our respective offices and get a little work done, and each afternoon, we would set up her sleeping bag and pillow, pop a movie into her portable dvd player, and she would fall asleep and nap all afternoon. Most days that's how it went down...some days the nap just wouldn't come, and I would be praying for 5:00 to please hurry up and get here. Overall my days were peppered with unexpected hugs and kisses from my girl, pictures colored and taped and stapled 1000 times just for me, post-its with love notes written in highlighter on them, and the sounds of Mattie playing and singing to herself in the office next to me. My office is painfully quiet today and I’m missing the half of my heart that isn’t here with me.


My heart hurts to be home with my girls, and maybe eventually I'll be able to, but right now I'm a working girl. I'm so thankful to God for giving me this sweet time with Mattie this summer that I wasn't even expecting or planning. I work in a pretty corporate setting, and the higher-ups at my work would probably not be thrilled to know this went on as much as it did, but we were able to fly below the radar with it and go pretty much unnoticed. I don't doubt that it was God orchestrated. I needed some Mattie time, and I think she needed some one-on-one mommy time, and we both got what we needed and are better, closer, and more in love for it. Thank you, God, for the gifts that we didn't even know we wanted.

Here’s some pictures of my big 4 year old before school this morning. To Mattie, a picture isn’t a picture unless you’re posing in it:

This is the same backpack from last year, but she’s still excited her name is on it. Note her pointing to it:

Someone decided to come see what was going on outside while we were taking these. See PK in the background?

And here she is once we got to school. She’s so big!

I can’t wait to hear how her day went!