Eve of Summer's End Ramblings...

A week ago Lily made a list...

"Things I want to do before school starts"

1.Get School Supplies
2. Go to the Pool one more time
3. Go to Dairy Queen
4. Choose my first day of school outfit
5.Go on a bike ride with Dad
6. Bake cookies (from scratch)
7. Improve my handwriting


How funny her end of summer priorities seem!

And just so you know we almost always hold off on school supplies till the end of the time. To me, buying supplies just seems like waving goodbye to summer and I am never in a rush to do that!

As of 8 pm tonight, she and her dad took an after dinner ride around the block and her list was complete.

Since I'm in the middle of reading The 5 love languages of children, my favorite part of this list was the baking cookies part. It along with the bike ride, just backed up my suspicion that my girl is a quality timer. It wasn't about the bike or the cookies at all it was a very big girl way of saying she wanted some quality time with each of us before she headed back into the school world. I'm so grateful for that.

Lily is Lily. She always has been a force of nature. In many ways I hope she always will be. I love seeing her growing up. I love seeing the gentle way she talks to little children (that are not related to her!). I love seeing how excited she is about the future. I love seeing her faith.

Sunday morning at church, cards in little manila envelopes were passed around with assignments in them. If you chose to open your envelope you were asked to prayerfully complete your assignment. Lily's was almost perfect. She was asked to surprise 5 neighbors with cookies or popsicles. Tonight she and Dax hopped on their scooters and knocked on 5 of our friendly neighbor's doors with bags of made from scratch, quality time cookies. I loved watching them together on their scooters with their silly helmets on. I wished I'd had the camera, something about it just made me a little teary.

I know she's getting too big for me to hand write her name on everything in her backpack, no matter how much joy I get from it. Tonight she allowed me to write her name on a few things, with explicit directions, "small mom, on the bottom, how 'bout black sharpie on this black background, it's ok if you can't see it, you could just make an 'L', really mom in 6th grade it's ok if it's not on everything...."

Next year I can write for Dax! But truth is, I'm probably done writing for Lily. She's probably humored me longer than most would. I'm so grateful that she and I are still able to have our lunch and movie date after school tomorrow. We've been doing this since at least 1st grade, maybe longer. I love the first day of school run down just she and I, I hope that lasts all the way up!

Now that it's late and tomorrow will come early I should go iron her top and write that first day of school note... I'm sure these things will last for many more years! As will the prayers that God will always be near her...