Phases

There are always plusses and minuses in any new phase of life. I am stuck right now in the minus zone. Rachel has one year left at home-one year left for me to homeschool her, although I will not even be doing much of that next year as she will be taking most of her classes elsewhere. Christina wants to skip a year and start high school. Why do they want to grow up so quickly? There are so many things that I miss about the younger years-the things they played, the time we spent reading, outings we used to go on, not being so busy and so bound by activities-the thing I miss the most, however, is knowing that I had a lot of time still left. I don't have that any more with Rachel. We are down to the wire and I don't like the wire.
I must force myself to look the way of the plusses. The fact that I can have amazing and deep conversations with my girls. Seeing them coming into their own-becoming their own people, with independent ideas and goals. Seeing them fail, and pick themselves up, seeing them learn to love and obey God more and more each day. Knowing that we have had so many memories together that will last a lifetime and that I have no regrets about putting them in school and losing all these years. Still, my thoughts wander back-taking them to Awana when they were younger, going on little road trips-the two of them riding in the backseat together and playing/singing, coloring together while I read to them, putting on plays on the weekend and playing dolls for hours. I know they have to grow up-it is just so hard. I love where they are now, I just don't want them to leave-and yet I do, because I know they have to become their own people with their own lives and that is one of my goals as a parent: to get them to the point of leaving and doing it successfully. It won't be without pain.