Well if you are parent like me, you have made it to the end of the first week of school! Congratulations! For some of us it is exciting because it is easier to get back into routines as a family. For others, you are excited to see your children grow academically and hit that next learning stage in their life. Maybe this will be the year that you child learns how to read. Maybe this is the year that they learn how to write or use a pen. Maybe this is the year that they graduate and you are wondering what the future holds for them. For us parents, there are so many thoughts running through our minds as our kids start school again. But what has been surprising for us has been the number one thought that we have consistently heard over the last two weeks.

The strangest thing has happened to Sandra and I over this past couple of weeks. It seems like wherever we go with our kids, whether it be at the park or the grocery store or even the Toronto Zoo, the prevailing thought from other parents has consistently been, “Wow, this is the most exciting time of year for us! We can’t wait to get our kids back to school so we can get our life back!” Sandra and I have lost count how many times in the past week alone we have been stopped and asked with extreme enthusiasm, “You must be so excited to get your kids back to school, eh? This is the best time of the year for all of us parents!!” It has shocked us and I have to admit to all of you, it has angered us!

As we have been processing this question, I have found myself asking the question, “What do we celebrate?” Most parents that I run into seem to celebrate “getting rid of their kids for 10 months of the year and getting their life back!” For us, having the kids go back to school is one of the most difficult days that we go through as parents. It is hard for us, especially after having such a great summer as a family. We absolutely love being with our kids and we celebrate our family time together! It is not a chore or a bother or a break in our lifelong dream of doing what we want to do when we want to do it! I can say with conviction that we celebrate our family! We celebrate our kids! We celebrate the gift that each of them are to us! We celebrate our time with them! We celebrate the opportunity to train them and influence them! We celebrate the difficult times knowing that it is all an opportunity to grow and change as parents! We are not on the countdown to get them back to school or to get them to move out of the house! We know that as they get older the time together will change. It will become more difficult to be together. We know it firsthand with Sandra’s family living in Sweden and Finland and half of my family 2 hours away. We have decided to be intentional when it comes to family and to celebrate it!

So my question for you today is simple. What do you celebrate? Through your day to day routines, what do you get excited about? As I have been thinking about this idea this week, I have been reminded that what we celebrate reveals our values! It reveals who we are. It reveals what we invest in and where we put our resources. Well I know for Sandra and I, we celebrate God! We celebrate our family! We celebrate the opportunity to do life together! We celebrate these things in the good times and in the bad. We celebrate it when we feel like it and when we don’t. Why? Because it is what we value! It is absolutely precious to us. This is why this past Tuesday was one of the most difficult days of the year for us. This is why we cringe when complete strangers come up to us with passion in their eyes and wonder how we plan to celebrate the return of a new school year. This is why I felt to write today and let you know that we celebrate our children! So my question for you today is simply this...what do you celebrate?