From Diapers to Kindergarten

I was reminded recently, by a series of posts from people with children whose ages start at just slightly older than my youngest, that there is a time in life when you truly look at your kids and think "How? How did we get from the obstetrics wing of the hospital to kindergarten in the blink of an eye?"

Those of us with kids who've been in school for awhile now tend to forget those days pretty easily.

The changes coming in our kids have to do with missing teeth and growing feet and pants that could be worn in a flood, with the bottom hem never contacting the water.

The changes are from glow-in-the-dark cast to healed arm and from bicycle accident complete with purple/green/blue "trophy bruising"* to asking for a unicycle.

I guess you could say the changes become more subtle as kids grow. After all, you can't "see" bones expanding or reading levels changing or invisible hair sprouting on legs. Those things, all the sudden, just seem to appear.

But, for certain, my favorite change is watching my kids blossom in their love for Christ.

It is fun to hear them sing "Jesus Loves Me" when they are two or three. But it is priceless to hear them singing along with the Christian radio station, loving the music, when they are tweens.

It's great when they "Hear God speaking" to them and want to know more about Heaven and all the answers to the great "Why?" questions that the Bible doesn't answer and theologians bicker about.

Now that two of my three have professed their love for Christ, I am anxious for The Babe. He has two great brothers who love God and talk about it fairly often, so I'm sure he'll catch on to this early. And, he's about the age one of the boys decided to make the big announcement.

For now, I'll savor the words we sing every night** and the prayers we pray at mealtimes and bedtime and the questions and statements he makes about God and who He is.

And I'll continue to pray that he'll develop a love for God that is deep and strong and lifelong.

After all, I'm not a 2/3 kid of gal. I'm all in. And I want 100% participation from my family.

I'm sure God is working behind the scenes to help me be sure I reach my goal.


*Where does all that bruising come from? It kinda freaks me out when I ask Doo Man and he goes "I have no idea." Really? Every time I bruise I can tell you EXACTLY what stupid thing I did to cause it.

**"Skitamarink a rink a rink, Skitamarink a doo. GOD loves you." We still do the "Skitamarink...I love you", too. But I think our favorite is the former.