Parenting

Fred wrote a beautiful post yesterday about parenting. We really had a special weekend. My mind continues to roam back to the years when our children grew up. The diaper years, the car-seat years, the pre-teen years, the teenage years, the sports games, the vacations, the different bedrooms, the college years and now their 20’s.

Watching your children grow up is hands downs the biggest gift we were ever given. Nobody hands you a license to have kids or a rule book. Nothing is standard. We raised our children with a set of values that they can always fall back on. Everything else has no boundaries which gave them the opportunity to find themselves through all their years of growing up.

Perhaps it is my age or being able to enjoy each moment in a different way as the kids have become young adults but watching them discover their own paths, set their own goals and then succeed at them is incredible.

Jessica, our oldest, showed her MFA thesis over the weekend. She creates work in computer imaging and animation. Completely self taught but after all she grew up on a computer and has always been creative. I remember her sitting in our bedroom, barely 2, at a big desk and an even bigger desktop playing Marc Mayer’s Grandma and Me over and over and over again.

The whole family came together, including two significant others who I adore and are now part of the family. It was amazing. We are so insanely proud of each of our children and the paths that they taking and particularly the relationships that they have with each other.

Living every day it is easy to just not take a second to step back and enjoy the moments but this past weekend gave us time to really sit back and take it all in. All those moments under our roof were on full rotation in my brain. We gave them a huge set of wings to fly and the good news is that they all allow us to revel in their achievements. The better news is that they allow us in their own nest and continue to fly home….often.