I want to savor every moment of this summer, one which will inevitably be filled with rock collecting, bubbles, and sidewalk chalk.  My intuition tells me to pay attention to every second, to be fully present so I don’t miss anything.

My babies are no longer in preschool.  I suspect the rocks in the picture are from the playground at the daycare…I can’t tell you how many days over the years both Porter and Liam have brought home rocks from the daycare playground.  In fact, there’s one on the dryer right now that Jared pulled out of one of their pockets, probably Liam’s, last week.

I will thank God for the rest of my life that my babies got their precious start out in the countryside of West Georgia, in a loving family, Christian setting.  Wherever else life may take these boys, I pray that they look back on these years with some modicum of fondness and I hope they realize as much as I do exactly how much the people who watched over them, who taught them, are people who also love them as their own.  I’m so thankful for their quiet start amongst a solidly family setting.

It was one morning before work, around 6:30 am, in November of 2007, the first time I walked into the daycare.  We were about to move into a new house and it was just for pure conveniences’ sake that I checked out this preschool, as we couldn’t leave our neighborhood without driving past it.  Mrs. Theresa greeted me at the door and when I asked for an application, she thought I meant a job application and started asking me about where I worked at the time.  She showed me around once I told her I had a child I wanted to place there, and said there was room for him in the baby room.  Porter was 15 months old at the time and we already knew Liam would be arriving the next May.  Porter probably looked something like this:

Mrs. Theresa accepted Liam, too, at 7 weeks old.  She and her staff looked after my boys from open to close for most of the next two years, as I battled my inner demons and accepted motherhood to two boys about as ungracefully as possible.  And when I completely dropped the ball on Liam’s second birthday party because I’d been sick once again, Dena stepped in and planned a small gathering at the daycare for him on a Saturday because she knew how important it was for him to have his party.

For the past five and a half years the preschool has been a fixture of our family’s daily life.  Liam graduated from Pre-K at the daycare on Thursday and for many reasons, it feels like a chapter is closing in our family life.  I know the daycare will be there for us if we need them.  I know we made lifelong friends there.  But in case I ever forget to say it in person, I just want to say it here:

Thank you, Mrs. Theresa, to you and your family.  We have been grateful recipients of your mission in the daycare and you have made a real difference for good in the early years of this family.  Your example is a gift and we love you.  God bless you.