It's June...

Camps are over and we are on our way to 4-H fair season. I just brought Middle Munchkin home today. She was the last of the three to go this year. Feels a little strange to be in that place already where they are going in three different directions. Sometimes I just turn in circles and ask, "When did it happen? When did they grow so tall and get so old and do they really need me anymore at all?

Not really. I honestly don't mourn the passing of being a Mom with little children, but I do find myself astonished, continually, that they've gotten this far this fast. Also thrilled, continually, that they are such whole and awesome people.

I used to think that someday I would write a book about parenting. How-to or memoir, I've never been quite able to decide, but I think I was always had this excuse in my head that I needed to wait to make sure I hadn't totally screwed my kids up in some fashion. I mean, you'd hate to be that woman who wrote the advice that became how to raise an ax murderer.

I don't know when, exactly, that anxiety left me. My midwife once told me (15 year ago -- sheesh!) that it didn't matter that I didn't know how to be a parent to a teen when I started because I wasn't the parent of a teen. I was just the parent of a wee little baby and if I listened to my gut, I'd do just fine by her. It's always worked for me. Just focusing on being the best parent I could can be to the kid(s) who is/are with me at this moment.

I'm not saying I've never stumbled or made mistakes.

But now, instead of trying on anxieties and worries when I let my mind wander, I find myself thinking that my kids are going to be just fine. I have no idea where they will go or what they will do, but somehow deep down I know that they are going to do it wonderfully, whatever it is. In fact, they seem to be doing it already. They just seem to know themselves and they trust their own instincts and they are not afraid to ask questions and find answers and disregard answers and look again on their own.

Sometimes I still wonder about me... but my kids, they are going to be just fine.

So no book is forthcoming. At least, not in the near future. I'm lucky these days to have the time to write a grocery list. It's a whirlwind of activity around here and sometimes I do long for those quieter, slower days when they were younger.

Quiet and slow is simply not where we are in this moment.