Tomorrow my children start school. A summer full of fun, sweet moments, sunshine, impatience, aggravation, rain, discoveries, adventures, laughter, growth and human-ness is coming to a close.
As I review the months and years that have led up to this moment, I am humbled, honored and proud. I love them in their purity. I love them in their impatience, persistence, imperfections and youth. I love them in their wisdom, humor and silliness. And they love me in mine. Our love has looked many ways over the years, and it hasn’t always been pretty-but it has been enduring. As my son once said, “Mom, I love you, even when you are yelling at me”. My response: “I love you, even when I’m yelling at you, and I’m sorry it comes out that way sometimes”.
“The days are long, but the years are short”, is the philosophy I went into parenting and parenthood with, and it has been tested to be true, in my experience. Where did the time go? I always thought people were crazy when they said, ‘enjoy it. It will be gone before you know it”. The sleepless, exhausting, behaviorally challenging, snot filled moments–I’ll miss those?!?! Maybe yes, maybe no. My reframe on that is: Enjoy what you can, in the moments parenthood gives you, and be compassionate with yourself, and your children, when things go astray.
Today I celebrate my children: I celebrate all they have learned, and all they continue to teach me. I celebrate the invisible strings that bind us together, and the imperfection of the human experience we share day-to-day.
The hands I hold, have gotten bigger as the years have passed, as have the feet that walk beside me. The hearts too, have grown. I brim with pride for these two: for who they are, and who they’ll be tomorrow, and the tomorrow after that. They are two of the finest people I know, and I am proud to be their mom.
