All Grown Up

Yesterday was Chase's first day of school. Kind of. He only went for an hour and Craig and I got to go with him. We got to meet his teacher and she oriented us on what Chase would be doing throughout the day.

Chase is not shy at all! He walked right in and introduced himself - without any prompting from us. Showed his teacher his missing tooth and asked if he could color. Just like they were old friends. I don't think he'll have any problems being comfortable there. He makes friends fast and is easy to get along with!

Today is his first day to go to school without us. I really did ok all morning while I helped get him ready. He got to pick what he wanted put in his lunch box. He got to pick out his clothes. And we went over being polite and having good manners at school. I was doing fine until we had our morning devotional.

Throughout my childhood my mother always did a morning devotional with us before we left for school. We would sing a Primary song or a hymn (the older we got). She had a scripture of the month that she would type up on a piece of paper and we would say it. By the end of the month we had the scripture memorized. Looking back I realize that this helped prepare us for scripture mastery for those seminary years! And then we would pray together. This little devotional only took all of 5 minutes. I didn't always like having this as part of our morning routine growing up. Power Rangers came on right before school and me and my brothers were REALLY into it. We never missed it! Well, we never missed the first 25 minutes of the show that is. Mom would always turn the TV off 5 minutes before the show ended to have our morning devotional. We would express our complaints, "Mom!! We just want to see what happens! You never let us watch the end!" And she would respond with, "I can tell you what happens. The Power Rangers win. They always win!" Which would in turn provoke more grumbling from us. We would have our devotional and then she would send us out the door to school.

Last month's Ensign actually had an article on having a morning devotional each day. The article is entitled Opening the Heavens (if you're interested in looking it up). Reading this article brought back memories of the devotionals we used to have as kids. After much thought I decided that this was something I wanted to do for my children as well. I sincerely appreciate my mother for taking a few minutes out of her busy morning to help us feel the Spirit before the start of our busy day. In a sense these morning devotionals suited us up in our spiritual armor before we ventured out into the world for the day. I can still recall certain scriptures we memorized and the words to hymns that are not commonly sung because of this time spent with my mother in the mornings.

So 5 minutes before we left this morning, me and the kids knelt in a circle. We sang a Primary song, read a scripture, and said a prayer together. I cried through the whole devotional! I was hit with the realization that not only is Chase all grown up, but I am now in my mother's shoes. I am the one sending my kid out the door. Just wanting to give him a little taste of the Spirit before he leaves and faces the outside world, hoping I've taught him enough.

We pulled up to the school and Chase jumped out of the car closing his door without grabbing his backpack or lunch box! He was too excited! I had to say, "Bye, Chase" FOUR times before the teacher with Chase finally bent down and told him to tell his mother goodbye! He'll do fine without me. And yes, I'm sure - eventually - I'll do fine without him, but for now I am missing him terribly!! His cute, toothless smile now gets to brighten his teacher's day. What a lucky lady she is to get to spend most of the day with my Chase :)