looking back and celebrating a Master.

last year....or maybe a year and a half ago?  the timing is cloudy.  ben qualified for his Master's Degree.  at the time we were saying, "oh, let's not bother with it."  he's registered in the doctoral program so it isn't a necessary step for him, it cost several hundred dollars to even apply to receive the certificate and whoknowswhat other fees {or reasons why they were there} and we were struggling to even pay our rent, so we skipped the ordeal.

but, with the past year of the ups and downs of schooling and the up-in-the-air way things have gone with his dissertation which will put a hold on everything, we decided to fork over the money and make ben an official Master.

sometimes it's nice to have a piece of paper to hold in your hand, in case your best laid plans go awry.  something tangible, to take with you...if you need it.

i looked back on the first two {and a half?  again, cloudy.} years of school and what this certificate and ben walking up a few carpeted stairs to greet one of his professors meant to us.  what the symbolism behind watching his hand reach up and flip the tassel on his cap from the right side to the left meant to me.

and truthfully, i teared up.  because to me, it meant a lot.  we faced quite a bit in those first couple of years, and realized what the words graduate school really entailed.  and what having multiple children while in graduate school really entailed.  what moving {twice} and having no close family support in graduate school really entailed.

we were very naive going into this situation, this idea of school.  almost as naive as we were when we first decided we wanted to have a baby.  we were starry-eyed and big dreamers and so optimistic about what our lives would look like.  during those first two years i struggled personally more than i think i ever have.  and ben did too, but in a different way.  individually we faced some of our darkest demons, and there were times when both of us felt extremely lonely, though we were together through it all.

we.  us.

ben received the paper and he earned every inch of that sucker.  but he walked up to me afterward, hugged me and thanked me for being there through it.  and i love him for that, for seeing me.

i have a few friends whose husbands are also in graduate school, and they just seem to take care of things on their own.  yes he is gone a lot, and she is left to work through children and all that entails, but with us it has been different.  ben has needed my support in ways i had foreseen and in ways that i hadn't.  and this has been the case for me as well, needing him in ways we had not expected.

blurry blinking at 4 a.m. to help correct/rewrite one of his many extremely long papers that was due at 5 a.m.  biting my nails off as he drove to turn in his end-of-the-year papers, praying he would make it in time.  crying tears as our hopes of finishing school in the timeframe we had initially thought pushed back another year.  working through constantly stressful financial aid problems together.  giving countless pep talks to let him know that regardless of what anyone {including himself} said or thought, that i knew he could do this.  that he could not give up, because i knew he would regret it for the rest of his life.

filming the online show in between studying and doctor's visits, hoping we didn't look as frazzled as we felt.  bouncing an endlessly screaming and colicky baby through 4 months, staring at the empty space in our bed, grateful in knowing his full-time overnight shift was helping him to complete his homework, while silently resenting his absence when i needed him most.  feeling trapped and suffocated in our small apartment with no car to leave, and only the blistering heat of the summer to walk out into.

we grew apart those first two and a half years, learning how to cope on our own because we were hardly ever together.  and ben and i had never been apart in this way before.  it was scary for a moment, until we both woke up and realized that if a child with special needs could not break us, and a group home full of mentally unstable teenagers could not break us, and a whole lot of outside family drama could not break us, then neither could this.  our love for each other and this life we had created was bigger than this.

we dug deep, recommitted, and worked through it.  no longer starry-eyed, but holding hands, interlocking our fingers and setting our jaws in determination to finish this.  together.

i can count on one hand the times i have literally felt a fork in the road of my life.  and i felt one those first two years.  and thankfully, as with the other times i have felt this, i look back and know i made the right decision.  i came to know the Mercy and Grace side of my God once again.  another growing pain put to rest.

i used to hate graduate school, loathing the very words and how it tore us down and changed us.  but now i see we were both stretched those first two years, and am finding we are now in more of a groove in life, in our marriage, than i feel we ever have been.

and it isn't over, this graduate school thing.  i think when it finally is, we will have to find our identity once again.  we will search for our new place in life and readjust as we so often have.

but until that day, we will hold onto this paper and know what it means for us.  

congratulations, Master Ben.  i know what this degree means to you personally, and each day i love you more and more for sticking with this and seeing it through.  i think the easy road would have been to quit every time you were discouraged, or when you saw your wife crumble under the pressure for a little while, or when you missed out on family events that the 9-5-and-home-on-weekends dads were able to attend, or just wanted to get a good night's sleep for the first time in weeks instead of staying up writing and studying.

we will get there one day, that will be us.  and we will appreciate it so much more than we would have if we hadn't earned it.

******
******

this weekend, we were lucky enough to have some family come into town to join us for the commencement, and then to meet up at a restaurant with an even bigger group to celebrate benandlynsey strader style--with food and laughing.

and now....of course,
pictures.

to my second grader.

{oh, i love you bloggy friends.  you gave me some great ideas/advice about bedtime.  we've been trying some of them....and things are easing up just a little.  thank you thank you!  i'll share the details when the outcome is a little more consistent. } 


and now, a letter to my son.



“You know that place between sleep and awake, the place where you can still remember dreaming? That’s where I’ll always love you. That’s where I’ll be waiting.” 
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Dear Caleb,

I didn't want to start this letter out with a downer, but I want to be honest because I know you'll read this someday, and one of the rules of our house is to be honest--with kindness.  The 6 and 7 year old years have been extremely bittersweet for me.  I think it's an in-between age, where you're not a little boy anymore, but you're also not a big kid yet.  You seem to be crawling out of your skin, wanting more, and I find myself sad that part of the little boy who adored his mom and dad, when we were all you needed, is growing up.  I know it's supposed to happen, and is a good thing, it's just that change like this has been harder for me than I expected it would be.

Up until this point, I've been the mom who doesn't mind when her babies grow and change and turn into toddlers like most moms do.  Watching puffy feet and rolling thighs turn into thinner, stronger, running legs.  I've loved each new stage even when it meant saying good-bye to the last one because it's replaced with more things to love.  I've tried to revel in all of your moments so that I didn't feel as if they had passed me by too quickly.  So this sadness of watching you become a big kid, knowing what it means you are leaving, has snuck up behind me and taken me by surprise.

I've watched your imagination go, where your old toys no longer satisfy you the way they once did.  You have always been an old soul, with an understanding and maturity that can sometimes shock me, so much that I often have to remind myself that you're still so young.  You want to know exactly the way things work, but you are no longer believing in things that keep childhood magical and alive.  Like when you came to me, telling me that the Tooth Fairy isn't real, and when I asked you why you felt that way {assuming you would say that one of your friends told you}, you informed me that you knew she wasn't real because fairies aren't real, so obviously she isn't.  And I said that if you felt that way, I understood.  It made sense.  But that you could either believe, and see what happened when you lost a tooth, and see if something showed up under your pillow... or you could choose not to believe, and I'm sure you would be right-- nothing would happen.

You walked away, only mildly satisfied with my answer because I would neither confirm nor deny your suspicions.  Unfortunately you have yet to lose a tooth {which has been driving you bonkers for the past 8 months to a year now, and has become quite the hot topic at our dinner table}, but when you do, I'm curious to see what you will choose.  

I hope you choose to believe.

Childhood only lasts for so long and in my opinion, not long enough.  You had to go through something this year that has taken a piece of that, and your dad and I had to figure out how to balance the situation.  It wasn't easy.  You were brave though, and we were so absolutely proud of you.  I wondered what other situations were going to come to you to challenge your soft heart. I say a prayer every night that you are able to overcome whatever is given to you, and that I have the strength as your mom to help you through these things in a way that will shape you to become a man who will use these trials as a piece to build your foundation so that they bear you up with courage instead of tear you down with fear.

You have such a strong spirit, Caleb.  Your competitive side has pushed your body physically to run all of the Fun Runs, no matter how difficult they have been.  At recess you choose to play football, and basketball, and wall ball, instead of do the less-physical things some of your friends choose to do, even when the physical games are so much harder for you.  I absolutely love this about you, and want you to love it about yourself.  You know your limitations, but you're constantly challenging them.  I'll always encourage you to do this.

A couple of my favorite ways to spend time with you lately are playing baseball with you {you are seriously awesome at it}, or on Sunday evenings when we play Monopoly just before dinner.  You are hilarious to watch!  We've played it probably 6 times now, but you've memorized all of the prices of all of the properties and how much they charge in rent when you land on them.  You've won almost every time we've played and get so full of yourself, it cracks your dad and I up.  

But my most favorite thing to do is read C.S. Lewis with you at night.  You lay on my shoulder and wrap your arms around mine, and we get nervous during upcoming battles and excited at the latest adventures.  You are my little boy again, when we read together.  There is nothing else except you and me during that time.  

I love that you still love to be around me, asking if we can hang out, just you and me "without the kids" as you put it.  And when I had to remind you that you are, in fact, a kid, your reply was so typical-Caleb, a shrug of your shoulders as you whispered so your sisters couldn't hear you "you know what I mean, Mom."

For this year, my wish is that you hold on just a little bit longer to childhood.  As much as you want to be an adult, I promise that it's not all it's cracked up to be.  Much less-fun than it looks to you right now.  So hang on, if you can.  Just until I get used to the idea, please?  I promise to be more ready to face it.

Know how much I love you, how much I adore your little face.  Your dimples, your olive eyes, your dark lashes.  You are an amazing boy who will take on the world someday.  Thank you for all you show me, for making growing up as easy on me as it can be because you are such a joy to be with every day.


Love,
Mom

one day down, 19 more years to go.....

so caleb's first day at school went off without a hitch.  

aside from the fact that i was stressed out because i was running a little behind & didn't want to look like "that mom" on his first day.  all of the rest of the days i couldn't care less, but this was his FIRST DAY.  no curlers and green face mask for me standing and waving goodbye in my long nightgown, no sir.

ben didn't have class until a little later so he was able to come with us, and i was grateful for it.  there's limited parking at the school and we had to park pretty far away in order to drop him off.  luckily we were prepared with a stroller, so we strapped leah in and took off.

at the kindergarten gate we took the official pictures:

 

 

and caleb didn't hesitate for a second, taking the hand of the lady helping him to find his class's line.  we watched him line up, and i will admit to sticking the camera lens through the gate and continually snapping away.  

then his teacher saw me and bless her, told him to look up and wave.

and he did.  

 

then marched on in, in front of a little boy who kept grabbing the side of his backpack.  caleb didn't seem to mind.

 

oh, my heart.

i'm not going to lie and say that it wasn't hard.  

i immediately had flashbacks of caleb through the years.  rocking with him and singing to him every night before bed, watching him take his first steps with tears in my eyes.  all of our conversations and time outs and rewards and laughter.

he's so grown up.

and even though it's the way it should be, 

it's not the easiest thing in the world i've had to do.

i love this kid so much.  i love his personality.  

his sweetness, his silliness, his bossiness, his fighting spirit, his good heart.  

i know he's going to do great.

i surprisingly didn't cry, as we turned to walk away.

i did however, when we got home, go upstairs and say an extra prayer.

then came back downstairs and made myself a banana split with mint chocolate chip icecream and hot fudge at 9:30 am  {ben had one too}.  

so i guess my icecream got the emotion instead. 

when i went to pick him up he ran to me and gave me the biggest hug.  his teacher said that he did great, he earned one of the "good job" stamps for the day and only needs 9 more in order to earn a treasure from the treasure box.   he told me how his teacher had introduced him to the class and how he had already made a couple of friends. and then he showed me what he had worked on.

caleb can read fantastically and knows all of his letters but has been a little slow with the writing part.

i thought this was the cutest thing.  his first schoolwork, coming home.

"the cat is fat."

i'm going to keep it forever.

well the hurdle of the first day is over.

what's next?

and am i going to need to buy more icecream for it?

oh, the places he'll go.

so tomorrow, this fella

is going to start school.
after waiting for the move, then the MRI, then the results, then the immunizations, then for us to all get well after the utah plague, then the registration, then hunting all over kingdom come for all of his medical records.....

he. is. READY!

he's extremely excited and i am too.  i think it will be so good for him and that he's going to do great.  it doesn't mean i won't miss him, and that it isn't hard to hand him over to "the world" now.  but i have felt for a long time that school is something that will be good for caleb.  plus after reading an entire reader level 1 book to me yesterday and only getting stuck on two words, i think he is about 6 months from surpassing my skill level.  just kidding.  sort of.

it's a new chapter here at the strader house.  life just keeps moving forward.

and it's good.

you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be some pictures taken tomorrow.