The sun rises, the sun sets

I can't quite seem to get it all together in my head today.  Maybe it's the weather, it seems a little bit confused as well.  It looks warm and sunny, until the little white flakes start falling.  I have been thinking a lot about young adult children.  I just read a friend's post about little changes in her life that may pass without notice if she doesn't stop to make note of it.  Her children are still conquering nap time,  so she has much to look forward to.

I remember well the day I thought that life would just be grand if all of the babies were weaned and potty trained.  It happened and the sun rose and the sun set and we were on to other things.  One day I looked back and wondered when that had actually been accomplished and why I hadn't heard the choir of angels singing.  Then I thought life would be just grand if I had a child who could drive, and everyone could go to bed on their own.  This too happened and the sun rose and the sun set and we were on to other things.  Soon there will be one less person living in my house and the sun will keep rising and setting and new things will take place.

This year I will be car seat free!  I will have a high school graduate.  All of my kids can read at some level.  We can all sit at the table in normal sized chairs.  For the moment all of the kids are at school.  And the sun still rises and the sun still sets and there will be more changes in the next few weeks.  I am thankful for this stage in life.  I am thankful for the routine things that happen every day, and I am thankful for the new things coming my way.

I'm trying very hard to come up with a plan for the next school year.  I honestly don't even know what that should look like, and I have moments of feeling very inadequate when folks ask me what my plan is.  I am starting to confront my feelings of loss since we are leaving the school we have been a part of for the last eight years.  People have told me that they will miss my kids being at school.  Believe me, we will miss it too.  I know there will be things I won't be able to go to for a while because it will be too hard to face all the things that my kids won't be getting at home.  Of course there will be other things that they will be getting, but I know it will be emotional for us.  I am very excited about  next year.  I just ordered a bunch of books, and I can't wait to get my hands on them.  I have discovered a lot of resources that I think will be very helpful.  I just don't know what it is going to look like, because I have never done this before.

It doesn't help that I am middle aged and starting on to something new.  I would think by now I would have some years of experience in something, but I keep changing things up.  I have a few years of experience in several things.  I'm sure this would not look good on a resume, actually I know it doesn't because I have one.  Maybe this is why I question my ability to encourage the younger ladies.  Many of them have much more wisdom and experience than I do.  Actually, I'm really good at telling folks how not to do things.  I hope there is some maturing going on there somewhere.

I see the value in stopping in the midst of the mess and confusion to recognize the things that have been accomplished.  Life will NOT be grand IF...  Life is grand.  I have two children who can drive all by themselves.  I have one child who reads Milly, Molly, Mandy and loves it.  I have children who write notes to each other telling them why they love having them as siblings (their spelling needs work, but I got the gist of the note).  I have two children who are happy and healthy in spite of having their worlds turned upside down and joining our family.  I have people asking if my kids can work for them for the summer.  I have a quiet afternoon to vacuum and write.  My parents are still around and like to come spend time with my kids.  My kids eat all of their food, or at least if one of them doesn't someone else eats it for them.  I can sit through a sermon and take notes.  We still have a lot of things left to do in life.  Some of them I try to avoid thinking about.  Wedding planning scares me to death, I am hoping to avoid it for at least ten more years.  I have one child that wants to make our small yard into a small farm, it is currently surrounded by caution tape.  If you drive by, don't worry there are no crime scenes behind the tape.  Creating my own high school transcript is giving me some chest pains, but thanks to the Internet, I think that will even be possible.  Life is grand, the sun rises, the sun sets, and there is still much to do.