But when you are the mother of said sweet, baby girl. That is starting school. She has been asking me about going to school since she was 2. Ever since then she has been counting the years, thats right counting the years until she was five and could go to school. 
Needless to say she is a LOT more excited about this change in her life than I was! I actually had to put school off for about a week because her curriculum books had not arrived by the time that I had told her we would start, this did NOT go over well. We have been going for a week now and every day I have to come up with more work for her to do because there is no way that she is ready to be done by the time that we are done going through what the curriculum says we are supposed to cover for that day. Now granted the curriculum isn' t quite as ambitious as I was thinking it was going to be. IN the first SIX weeks of her math curriculum I am supposed to teach her how to count to 10 and how to write the number one. (woah). IN the second SIX weeks I am supposed to teach her how to count to 20 and how to write the number two. Now to be fair writing the number two is tricky for a four year old, but somehow I think we might be able to cover that in twelve weeks of trying since she already knows how to count to 29. After 29 she thinks it's 100. I'll deal with that week 13 of school.
As for me, I don't deal with change well. I can hear the gasps now coming from those who have known me for so long and are shocked to hear that. I don't deal with my kids growing up well, and well I am not a very organized, routine oriented person. I know some shocking revelations this morning but honesty is the best policy and I have heard that admitting you have a problem is the first step towards fixing said problem. It has been fun. It is exciting to see the passion she has for learning, oh how I pray that I can help her keep that passion for learning. We have been learning Bible verses as part of her Bible curriculum. If you are a parent I can NOT stress enough how much I wish that I had started this with her earlier. Being able to memorize something and quote it back to me is something that I always assumed she would find frustrating and something that we would do 'later'. Well it is one of her favorite parts of school. It is so tangible for her, when she quotes back a verse to me from memory she knows that she has really learned something that she didn't know before. She can rattle it off to anyone that she happens to come across in her life and thereby show them that she has learned something. In doing so she has effectively taught her brother her memory verse. So now I know that I am at least two years later teaching her scripture memorization than I could have been.
Oh well, no looking back we move forward. So the next time you see one of my kids, ask them what Genesis 1:1 says. You won't be sorry. :-)
We will be spending the first few days to a week in En Gedi. The Timo-aim headquarters in Tanzania. That will give us time to learn all about how Timo works and to get our bodies adjusted to Africa time. They are 8 hours ahead of us and our flight to get there is about 22 hours all told so I am thinking they know what they are doing when they don't throw us right into working! 
THe two weeks by themselves are exciting enough and for most of us a once in a lifetime opportunity. But for me and Tim as we look around to see if maybe this is something that we are looking to commit to long term the stakes go even a little higher! 
