Crying over a bunk bed

Welcome to October!  I feel like this month was made for me and I allow everyone else to enjoy it.  :)  The weather today is amazing and I mark it because I know that it will soon be over.

I'm into marking events.  I've blogged about it before.  I like to mark the beginning and end of events.  I enjoy change (ahem. . . five kids in 10 years) and recognizing the beginnings and ends helps me to cope and celebrate and not get so very emotional.

So I got emotional last night.  A friend donated a set of bunk beds to us.  It was an awesome gift--our plan is to put the three boys together in the larger kids bedroom and the girls in the smaller one.  My original plan (when we just had two boys and two girls and then we were done) was to have the girls in the big one and the boys in the smaller.  I even had the beds that my sister Tricia and I used for Noel and Penny.  It made me smile to see my girls in the same beds that my sister and I slept in. . . and played in. . . and fought. . . and moved. . . and snuggled. . . and read. . . oh I'm so sentimental!

Well, yesterday afternoon Gary and I worked hard to get the new bunk beds set up in the big room and then it just kind of happened that we began switching.  I kept moving clothes and sorting and taking off sheets and washing them. . . and before I could really process it. . . the boys were in new beds and the girls had moved into the old bunk beds.  My old bed was gone.  Gone!  We tucked them in and then Gary made me sit down.  I had toenail surgery again on Monday and I've been moving too much (too much bleeding!) so he told me to sit down.  I listened.  Then I'd sneak up and take out the garbage quick and he tells me to sit down again.  He is good for me that Gary!  We were talking and I began to cry.  Perhaps it is because I'm tired and we had Bible Study which takes a lot out of me.  Perhaps I was frustrated about my toe.  The biggest reason though is because I didn't get to mark the last night of the girls in their room.  I didn't get to gaze ta Penny one last time in her bed just like I had during her last nap in her crib.  I didn't get to look at the boys room and celebrate the memories I have of my boys.  You'd think that my kids were leaving!  They had just switched rooms, but it marks the end of something and the beginning of something new.

I'm o.k. today.  We've been laughing because Garrison wanders into his old room to get ready for school.  Penny kept crawling out of her bunk bed to explore the surprises under the bed that haven't been purged yet.  I get excited to think of tucking in my three boys every night and hearing them whisper in Mandarin to each other.

We are entering a new season.  That empty bed is a tangible reminder in our house that we aren't complete yet.  God is getting us ready!