Alone, at last

By nine this morning, I had dropped off my last two children and headed home.  I was alone, gloriously alone, but alas, I was also sleepy since I’d gotten about six hours of sleep.  So I spent my glorious time home alone napping.

My teenagers have attended CreationFest for the past few years.  They wanted to go this year, but their youth group only planned to attend for one day–but the whole festival lasts four days.

As is their typical approach of life, they waited until the very last minute to figure out a solution to their problem.

And, because I knew how much they wanted to go, I intervened and worked a miracle.  How?  I did a Google search, figured out that a local church was taking a group and had one of the boys call the youth pastor directly to ask if they could tag along.  (They’d attended this church’s New Year’s event, too, so they knew the youth pastor.)  I ordered tickets online and printed them out.

The youth pastor agreed to let my boys join them–and someone in their church happened to volunteer to drive a car–and thus, twelve hours before the departure time, it all worked out, thus reinforcing for them the idea that you can wait until the last minute and things will be fine, just fine.

My younger kids are going to VBS all week.  The 12-year old is an enthusiastic and cheerful helper and the 7-year old has amazed me with her independence.  Last year I had to convince her to stay several mornings and she cried when I left.  This year, I don’t even have to walk her all the way in.

I realized today that I have truly turned into the mythical taxi driver.  I used to be all about wiping noses and making snacks and now I’m all about driving people around and passing out twenty dollar bills.

Is this progress?