Claire, my dining room table, church
Today Claire came home from work and we sat at the table for awhile. Oh boy, if my dining room table could talk......there are more memories soaked into this table that I can recount, and more tears and bursts of laughter than I can ever remember. There are more lists and memos and plans etched into it that I could ever save......
She is making her lists for moving to college. It's true that she is only moving a couple hundred feet away to the college in our town, but she is still moving out. She is taking all of the things she uses every day and she is setting up a life in a dorm on a college campus with a new roommate and a whole new world. In 4 days we will move her out. It is so weird. It is the weirdest thing ever.
Adding children to our home is not weird at all. Figuring out how to send them out is. I'm less sad and more....conflicted, maybe. I am so excited for her. Moving to college is probably one of the best experiences that a healthy, well-adjusted young lady could have. She knows who she is. She knows what matters. She has so much to offer the world and this college is her key. This college is the key that will unlock her journey and her path and her plan.
Roger and I have done our part. We held her and read to her and rocked her and sang to her. We fed her and we comforted her when she was hurt. We bought her hundreds of stuffed animals to snuggle and thousands of books to read. We took her on vacations when we were able. We went to the park and to the pool. We hosted birthday parties. We helped her study her spelling words and we cried with her when friends broke her heart. We cheered for her in her successes and we were present when things didn't go so well. We helped her raise money to go on mission trips. We helped her fill out college and loan papers.......we have done our job.
She is very ready to move on. We are very excited to see where her journey takes her. We will miss having her here every morning and evening. We will notice one place missing at the table and one empty seat in our 7 passenger vehicle. Mostly, I think, I will miss having her sit with us in church. Tomorrow may be the last time she sits in a row with us for church in that familiar way that families do. Families file in and no one discusses where they will sit or when they will stop talking to people around them, they just know. Families know who has the mints, who has the fidgets, who has the bulletin. Families know who should not sit next to each other. Families know who should take the younger ones out to go potty or get a drink. After tomorrow, our row changes. She may join us from time to time, but overall.....its gonna be different now.
After church tomorrow we will come home as we usually do and have Sunday dinner. I have worked hard to regularly make a comfort food meal for our family every Sunday noon. I did the prep work today for our Sunday noon meal.....tater tot casserole, monkey bread and cut up fruit. I realize that tater tot casserole is a regional dish and foreign to some....and much to my dismay, when Claire and I were talking at the table this afternoon she said she may ask her new roommate to join us for church/dinner. I told her that yes, by all means, invite her! But if she did we needed a brief pick up party so as to not scare the poor girl off.....and then I wondered if tater tot casserole might freak her out more than our messy house.....oh well. Too late now.
We will set the table tomorrow and it may have one extra plate instead of one less......at least for this week. After Claire moves on Wednesday I may need to sit at this table alone for a few minutes and just remember all of the things she and I talked about and created there with play-dough and paints and slime and glue and crayons and love......and make a point to thank God for the blessing she is.....
She is making her lists for moving to college. It's true that she is only moving a couple hundred feet away to the college in our town, but she is still moving out. She is taking all of the things she uses every day and she is setting up a life in a dorm on a college campus with a new roommate and a whole new world. In 4 days we will move her out. It is so weird. It is the weirdest thing ever.
Adding children to our home is not weird at all. Figuring out how to send them out is. I'm less sad and more....conflicted, maybe. I am so excited for her. Moving to college is probably one of the best experiences that a healthy, well-adjusted young lady could have. She knows who she is. She knows what matters. She has so much to offer the world and this college is her key. This college is the key that will unlock her journey and her path and her plan.
Roger and I have done our part. We held her and read to her and rocked her and sang to her. We fed her and we comforted her when she was hurt. We bought her hundreds of stuffed animals to snuggle and thousands of books to read. We took her on vacations when we were able. We went to the park and to the pool. We hosted birthday parties. We helped her study her spelling words and we cried with her when friends broke her heart. We cheered for her in her successes and we were present when things didn't go so well. We helped her raise money to go on mission trips. We helped her fill out college and loan papers.......we have done our job.
She is very ready to move on. We are very excited to see where her journey takes her. We will miss having her here every morning and evening. We will notice one place missing at the table and one empty seat in our 7 passenger vehicle. Mostly, I think, I will miss having her sit with us in church. Tomorrow may be the last time she sits in a row with us for church in that familiar way that families do. Families file in and no one discusses where they will sit or when they will stop talking to people around them, they just know. Families know who has the mints, who has the fidgets, who has the bulletin. Families know who should not sit next to each other. Families know who should take the younger ones out to go potty or get a drink. After tomorrow, our row changes. She may join us from time to time, but overall.....its gonna be different now.
After church tomorrow we will come home as we usually do and have Sunday dinner. I have worked hard to regularly make a comfort food meal for our family every Sunday noon. I did the prep work today for our Sunday noon meal.....tater tot casserole, monkey bread and cut up fruit. I realize that tater tot casserole is a regional dish and foreign to some....and much to my dismay, when Claire and I were talking at the table this afternoon she said she may ask her new roommate to join us for church/dinner. I told her that yes, by all means, invite her! But if she did we needed a brief pick up party so as to not scare the poor girl off.....and then I wondered if tater tot casserole might freak her out more than our messy house.....oh well. Too late now.
We will set the table tomorrow and it may have one extra plate instead of one less......at least for this week. After Claire moves on Wednesday I may need to sit at this table alone for a few minutes and just remember all of the things she and I talked about and created there with play-dough and paints and slime and glue and crayons and love......and make a point to thank God for the blessing she is.....
This has me in tears and I'm not ever her mama. You did good friend. Very, very good!
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