Think about the thing you’re most afraid of. That repeating loop that you carry with you, that pokes at you from it’s darkened corner of your mind, where your fears all lurk and linger. That one that you just glanced over at, but quickly looked away to make sure nobody saw you looking at it? That’s the one. The one you can kind of sort of allude to in a conversation, but never directly name it because it is that crippling, and you’re afraid it just might answer back and step out from its decrepit corner.

Name it. Call it out. Dare it to look back at you.

Making friends is hard. Especially when you homeschool. We have been on the hunt for some 10-ish year old friends who could maybe come alongside of us in this wild ride of life and learning together, and while we’ve got some promising buds, we’ve also had a ton of strikeouts. It’s affected our girl the most, and while I know this is tough for her, I’m trusting that when the time is right the Lord will knit together just who she needs for a season such as this. Just like He is doing for me. 

If I could hold your face between my hands and brush miles away that lay between us, I would tell you this much.

Your heart is golden, and desperately ready to be treasured. There are age-old cracks from past partners, which don’t hinder its beauty at all. However, while it is still radiant and dashing, the compromised crevices can’t withhold the heavy hand that foolishly fumbles and even seeks to break it. Take your heart back into your own hands, my girl, before you lose yourself and can’t find it anymore. You have worked too hard to make it to where you stand today. For every wound that took 30 seconds for someone else to inflict upon you, you spent years healing and becoming whole again. Don’t forget how strong you really are. Don’t forget how good it felt to remember yourself again.

I don’t care how old my kids get, I therefor and hitherto solemnly swear and publicly proclaim that from this point forward and forever more we will always read picture books aloud together.

Ok, maybe that is an ambitious vow, but I DO hope we always keep that deep-seeded love for the classic, snuggled-up, tuck-my-toes-under-the-blanket-next-to-yours kind of book reading. I’ve always had a tender spot for a good story, since it’s one of the most lasting and powerful ways we connect to each other as people, and it helps us to understand things and ideas far greater than us. Over the years, we’ve read our share of books together as a homeschool family, and there have been a few that have stuck with me as real treasures that we will occasionally wander back to and recommend quite often to folks we know (and even to some we don’t).

So I’ve got this middle kid. He loves all animals and dinosaurs and casually busts out obscure facts he’s memorized about them. His favorite song on Spotify is called “1,000 Fart Sounds” (look it up, it’s a thing). He loves baseball, devours every single Calvin and Hobbes book he can find, and asks to ride his bike from the moment he opens his eyes to the minute he lays himself back down. He makes weird faces in every photo ever, he’s great at pressing all the buttons everywhere we go (both literally and figuratively), and he tries to rough and rowdy his baby brother on the reg while simultaneously menacing his older sister whenever possible. He’s SO awesome, but sort of in a hot-mess-express kind of way.

He laid on the wet pavement and wrestled with his tire, and as we talked he peppered our conversation with step by step instructions on what to do if I were changing my own flat tire. He said that teaching skills like this was actually kind of therapeutic for him. Funny thing, I actually learn best from watching someone else demonstrate.