The Love of Learning

Today, we watched my brother-in-law march across stage to receive his Masters of Theology degree. Next, he goes on to Princeton for ThM #2, and then he hopes to pursue his PhD. My heart surges with pride to be related to this lover of wisdom and knowledge. I also feel a twinge of envy and thoughts of my unobtained Masters degree fleetingly cross my mind. Then as we drive home, I sing "Pop goes the Weasel" with my 18 month old and he inserts "POP" as I pause after "the monkey thought was all in fun..." and I realize that my decision to quit grad school mid-way through to watch this wonder grow and develop was so, so worth it. As we go through our day-to-day routines and I see the world through his eyes, I learn so much. Things that cannot be taught from a text book. We pause to smell the flowers, to touch the grass, to watch a bug crawl across the steps. We rejoice in every new word learned (well, with the exception of "NO") and every milestone surpassed. At the end of the day, when I tuck Ethan into bed, I am thankful that I sacrificed formal learning for a chance to learn the art of motherhood, a course that will provide challenges and rewards for a life-time.