My youngest child started seventh grade today. Her alarm woke her. She wore a brown skirt and black blouse she chose herself. She insisted that I put a purple streak in her blond hair. She rejected breakfast but accepted a Zone bar and a Jamwich for later. She packed up her school supplies in her backpack and waited for her carpool ride to pick her up.
I went back to bed.
I remember the old days when I bought packs of crayons and pink erasers and chose outfits for the first day and walked kids to their classrooms. This child–my youngest child–is so self sufficient she needs me only for rides and money. I’m not sure exactly how to feel about this so I choose to feel great. I did this! I created this self sufficient being.
(Only, she pretty much created herself. She’s had a mind of her own since she was three months old and decided that no one but Mommy would be allowed to hold her. Ever.)
My middle boy is a senior in high school.
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The oldest boys are busily taking classes at community colleges nearby.
Do you remember how the days dragged along when you were a kid living at home, obeying your parents and following their rules and eating the dinners they provided? Now, that seems like a lifetime folded up and put into glove box, like some kind of weird shrinking universe that folds in upon itself.
I know that this stretch of time while the kids still live here and ask me what’s for dinner will be a hazy memory to them one day soon. It will no longer be everything, but just a paragraph in a life’s story. They are so eager to grow up and be gone. (Well, some of them are.)
Meanwhile, I have to figure out what to cook for dinner. I’m still trying to catch up on the laundry that piled up while my daughter and I were in the Pacific Northwest for a week. (A whirlwind of a trip!) I meant to brush the dog a few days ago, but can’t find her brush and for that reason, the dog fur tumbleweeds are worse than usual.
Actual Unretouched Photo 
No pictures by the front door? Has that, too, gone away? Soon, it will be time for senior class pictures. Hope they still do that.
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Our district starts tomorrow.
I remember your early posts, full of angst and pushing back walks. Now you seem to float freely.
I hope your mother is ok.
Having a smart phone would be distracting, but if I had your views, I would get one….
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I have ‘known’ you folk for a long time now.
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its been two weeks and my home is now emptied of all offspring. I come home to silence and clean counters. John and I have not yet decided who gets to take out the garbage or empty the dishwasher or plow the sidewalk. My idea is to hire a responsible, kind, eager witty child who can be our pretend son until we can figure out the division of labor and I can receive clear instruction (for the 700th time) as to how to work the TV remote. We would send him back when Caleb comes home and nobody is the wiser, right?
My brain cannot figure out where everyone went. Didn’t we just dress up to go see the theatrical release of “Lord of the Rings” a few weeks ago? Weren’t all three boys wear clip on ties for Easter just last month? Who decided it was a good idea for my two older sons to move out of my old house a few weeks before we moved? Who was the nincompoop that determined my youngest son needed to break away, go to college and be his own man?
I knew this day was coming, but it came too quickly still. I’m taking it a day at a time and I’m finding the grace to navigate this new void. I’m very blessed in that two of my guys live nearby but with Caleb gone it is really beginning to sink in that my work in hands on parenting is complete. And that is that.
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