I see you, Mama. I see you with your kids all around you, each with a different learning style, each with an only-for-mama smile and needs no one can fill like you can.
I see your baggy eyes and droopy shirt, hair you haven’t had time to wash this week because, well, you just haven’t had a moment to yourself.
But I also see the fierce determination in your eyes, that resolve to teach your own because you know nobody else could fill that spot quite the way you do. You know you were called to this, and it’s sacred ground that holds you and all those little ears hearing you read.
You probably won’t get a certificate today, or flowers, or a sappy greeting card. If you’re going to get an apple, you’ll probably have to wrestle it from the toddler climbing into the crisper. You probably won’t even get a “Happy Teacher Appreciation Day!” on your Facebook wall.
Because Teacher Appreciation Day is for “real” teachers.
But Mama, I’m here to tell you that they don’t come any more real than you.
You don’t get to change hats from Mama to Teacher to Nurse to Coach to Chauffeur and back again. No, you are all those things at once.
In fact, in my book you’re pretty much a rock star.
So you keep reading, and helping little fingers form letters, and checking math problems. And you keep doing all that while nursing a baby and cooking supper and wiping out fridge shelves for the eighth time in a single day. You keep doing what you do, and you keep rocking at it.
There’s something I want to tell you from the 25-year side of homeschooling. You probably aren’t going to be patted on the back very often for doing what you do. But believe me when I say there will be rewards you can’t possibly fathom on the other side of licking jelly off the white board. More than you can imagine.
There aren’t awards made for what you do. Because there can’t be.
Happy Teacher Appreciation Day, homeschooling mama. May your children, and everyone else, rise up and call you blessed.
A Beautiful Life 