One of my kids WAS in Mexico

(I haven't blogged for so long that I don't know if all my friends who used to read my blog think I died and don't bother to check anymore, but I am going to blog as if you are all still out there in internet land reading this!)

My daughter is home from Mexico, went through a week of 5-day club training and is now gone again to teach clubs for the summer.  We will likely see her most weekends, but she will be gone for the majority of the summer.  Then she comes home for 2 weeks and goes away to school.  How did this all come so fast?

I know that it is cliche - but it is cliche for a reason!

It is so true.  The time really did fly. Do you know that saying

The days are long - but the years are short.

Have you heard that one before?  It is totally a true statement. There were many, many, many long days of parenting that have occured over the past 17 years 11 months and 7 days, did I mention there were many?  But truly, I find it so hard to believe that we have gotten to this place so quickly.  This place, where she is ready to move out and go to school.  Crazy!

How do I feel about it?

Excited, nervous, relieved and sad.

I am excited because she is an amazing young woman who I have no doubt will succeed at wahtever she does.  She is smart, funny, cooler than she thinks she is, she thinks for herself, she has more confidence than she thinks she does, and she is overall a totally cool human being!

I am nervous because she is not fully aware of her coolness and awesomeness so she has a tendency to follow when she should lead...although I am seeing that less and less!

I am relieved because when we started this parenting thing we were not headed in the direction that we are now going in.  My beautiful oldest daughter was a complete surprise.  I wasn't married, I wasn't planning on having children at that point in my life...I was planning on going to hair school - you know, to be a hairdresser.  But there I was, 21 and pregnant.  I came to know Jesus as my savior when she was about 9 months old.  And it changed the trajectory of our lives in immeasurable ways!  My husband (who was my boyfriend at the time) also was born again a few months after me and we started out trying to be a family who loved and served the Lord instead of being people who lived in the same house but served ourselves. It was hard!!!  HARD!!!  And it was not normal, or what we knew at all - when we started homeschooling our views of family and children were changed even more!  We did not know if what we were doing was going to be good or not - but I am relieved because really when I see my daughter now as an almost adult I know that it has not hurt her to be raised differently than I was.  We have not been perfect in any way - believe me I wish I didn't yell at them ever, not even once, and I wish that I had been more consistent, and more decisive, and more patient...but all in all, I do believe that God has filled in where I was void and she is an amazing young lady.  Not that I don't think she would have been if she had gone to school - let's not turn this into a homeschooling/public school debate, because that is not what it is...I am just saying that she is turning out to be a godly young lady and  she is making great choices, I am very proud of her!

AND I am sad because although I will always be her parent, and always be her mom and always be fiercly defensive and proud of her - my time of full time parenting her is coming to an end.  She won't be here to leave her junk laying around and drive me crazy on a daily basis.  At least not for next year,  and even if she does come back to live at home after bible school and go to post secondary, it will be different.  I would truly give anything to go back to those days when she was a tiny kid, so funny and independent, determined and stubborn - wait, she is still most of those things!!  :)

Moms, don't wish it away.  I know that the days are long, and you are tired!!  I get it, I really do, I still have a toddler, remember, I am tired right along with you - but I have this unique perspective of watching one leave the nest as I am still cradling one in arms.  Enjoy the time, count the blessings not the failures! We are not perfect, neither are our kids - but every part of it is worth it!  Count the blessings!!