It Happened

I'm sitting home by myself on a friday night...husband and son are in Arizona hiking and my daughter and many of her closest friends are experiencing their first junior high dance....Mother's day is coming and somehow, my kids have grown up! 

I don't know when it happened....I still remember how special those first few Mother's Days were to me.  Growing our family through adoption made Mother's Day really, really special and a bit bittersweet.  I was happy, I was finally a mom but I knew that each of my children's birth mothers had a hole in their hearts that day.  I have treasured each mother's day but somewhere along the way....my kids went from being babies to being young adults....

It had to happen..you know, when they are driving you crazy running in the grocery store or even worse, laying in the floor throwing that fit they somehow learned, a little older lady smiles sweetly and says, 'treasure these days, for soon, very soon, they will be over!'  Yeah right!  When you're in the thick of those wonderful (terrible) days, you just want them to end and you to get a good night's sleep!  Well, I'm there, they are almost gone!  And it hurts and I'm sad...but I'm also proud of them both.  My chest bursts with pride when someone outside the family comments on how polite they are or how hard they worked or how giving they both are!  My husband and I seem to be raising two pretty wonderful kids...I'm not sure how we got so lucky! 

It had to happen.....I'm up once again late..but this time, I'm rocking alone in my chair...waiting to be the pick-up mom....