Anticipating

I feel like I've been pushing my children from the moment they were born. I've pushed them to dress themselves, to eat on their own, to stand on their own two feet, to learn to read, to cook, to do the dishes and the laundry....The list goes on and on and on.

The other day, I took two boys with me to deal with something difficult (again back to the last post's mention of someTHING getting hurt--more on it later, I promise). While we were out, we decided to pick up something for lunch. I realized this was a prime opportunity to push my 11-year-old into a new experience.

I gave him some money, told him what I wanted, and sent he and his little brother into Wendy's to order lunch for me and for themselves.

It took them a long time, and I finally decided that I'd better go check in and see what was going on. I peeked my head in the door just as they grabbed their two bags of food (and frosty's, of course).

As they walked to the car, I heard #4 say, "I'm so proud of myself!"

YAY! That was the goal. He had confronted the unknown and succeeded. Mission accomplished! Self-esteem increased. Yay! I was so proud of him.

The Warden just shared the following video with me. It reminded me of that experience from a few days ago with #4. We, as mothers, are always pushing.






Today, we went up the Gorge. Although I could have been at a lovely luncheon, I left a bit early because I know that my time with all of my birds in the nest is short-lived. I need to maximize on all the time I can get with all of them.

I know that once they leave, coming back will never be the same as things are right now. I also want to increase the chances that little brothers and sisters will remember what it was like when we were all together.

The thought of their leaving makes me sad. I will miss them and what we have right now terribly.

This was just another trip up the Gorge. Just a trip to appease their mother. The older kids, at first, weren't all that thrilled with the prospect, but it soon became apparent that it didn't matter what we were doing. Just being together was fun. They cracked jokes about silly things. They laughed and talked and ate burgers and huge ice cream cones and begged for onion rings from their dad. They watched a train go by and counted the cars. They grabbed an indecent number of pamphlets and brochures, handed them one by one to their little sister and watched her attempt to balance them--somehow, to her, sticking your tongue out helps you balance, I guess, but we all got a good laugh out of that. I watched the older kids hang onto the younger kids to keep them safe. The Warden pulled the car over, so we could jump a fence and walk through a tunnel, but we didn't walk, we ran in the craziest ways we could, to get to the other side to meet up with our monstrous van again and continue on our way. We waved to a random family up on the upper bridge at Multnomah Falls as they waved at us down below--both families were thrilled.

It was a joyful day. I'm clinging to every one I get before I have to start making the big pushes. Pushes that'll be much harder for me than the ones I made to get them here in the first place.