My job. What is my job? Is it teaching tap class? Running a studio? Managing the photo booth business? Those are the things I do to earn a living. But what about our unpaid job? The job that has no hours? The one that does not come with an “Employee Handbook.”
I am talking about the job of being a parent. Teaching our kids right from wrong. Teaching them to save their money. Letting them make mistakes. Not giving them everything they want (in my case that was easy – I couldn’t anyway). Teaching them to be good people, kind people and strong people who can admit when they’re wrong …and move forward knowing better. Bottom line… I want my kids to be better people than I ever was.
What about when you teach your kids to be independent? And here is the kicker …and then they are. That’s actually where I am today and what I am writing about. I raised three kids to make decisions on their own, not be afraid to meet new people, look people in the eye, ask questions, and just keep learning as much as you can, even outside the classroom.
My kids are actually fun. And funny. I like being with them.
I really have no idea what was going on in this picture!
When people say, “I can’t WAIT for my kids to go back to school!” I think, Really?
Daughter #1 is my baby that asks me all summer if I want to do something (dinner, movie, walk, whatever). She will not only ask if I need help, but when I say I do, she does it! Now, she is in college a plane ride away (in DC) basically trying to learn to save the world; and she will (if all goes right) travel abroad for a living.
Mama trying to be cool, but devastated on the inside.
Daughter #2 is closer to home, just a two hour drive away in college. She volunteers to help the freshman move in, joins dance club (of course) and is working toward being in ISU’s Gammi Phi Circus. She has even started a second business of her own while at school!
My house is SO quiet with the energy of these two young women missing.
And I apologize for being so dramatic, but I feel an emptiness that I cannot thoroughly explain, only that it feels so overwhelming at times. And why is this? They have become the people I dreamed they would be! I should be doing “The Happy Dance!” Instead, I count the days until I get to see them again!
As I write this, I seriously have tears in my eyes. Why is it so hard to let them go and let them do their thing? Don’t get me wrong… I am HAPPY they are so happy exploring it all. And yet at the same time, I am sad that I am so sad. Thank God, I still have my son at home for one more year. But, even he is gone all day from early morning until evening (between school, football and everything else he volunteers for). At least I know at the end of the day he will talk to me for a bit and give me a hug before he says goodnight.
My life is very different than the life I had 15 years ago …when the house was a complete unorganized mess (Lincoln Logs and Legos scattered everywhere, dirty laundry on the floor, unfolded laundry on the couch, incomplete puzzles among tiny pieces of unidentified whatever – that we can’t throw out because we might figure out what it belongs to later). I waited on three other people for three meals a day, plus snacks and I couldn’t go to the bathroom without one of my little munchkins coming in to ask me/tell me something “super important!” Oh, and I was always tired. I actually remember dreaming of the day I would get to sleep more than four hours in a row!
And now… the house is clean, it is crazy quiet, I only have to take care of me, I can close the door to the bathroom now and I pretty much get as much sleep as I need.
Here is the crazy: I kinda wish for that other life back from 15 years ago. Oh, the irony.
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