So That's a Wrap!...Now What?

If you are thinking what I am thinking..... that seems like A LOT of Saturdays, right!?! :) 

Today I put the last man standing on the bus to Kindergarten and although it's not an "empty nest", it will forever more be abandoned from the hours of 8 to 3! When searching for the perfect quote to start off what will be my synopsis of this chapter of parenting ended, I came across this one and had two very clear routes I could have taken.. And alas, I chose the route of least emotional lamenting because if we can laugh we just may not cry, right?!

I started this blog over a year ago, and still to this day some of my favorite posts have been personal ones. Maybe not for you, but for me, because this blog is for sure to share my passion for decorating but also if nothing else ever came of it I wanted it to somewhat chronicle my life as just an ordinary stay at home mom in case someday my kids wanted to know who I really was and what I was thinking the whole time I had the privilege of being their mom. I have written about adopting my son, raising a girl and what I've taken away from my life to date, you know, before mid life crisis sets in. 

Since Erin joined me sharing her crazy design skillz on the blog I have not written much on the personal front but today, before I dive back in to blogging after a long summers nap, I have to reflect on what it's like to put your last baby on the bus... Yes, for years I have been taking him to the bus stop but today they actually took him:)   One of the first things you think when you walk back into your house and get the door shut (and double bolted) is, holy shit, what just happened here?! You recall all those annoying older wiser, CRAZY TRAIN moms who say to you, in the middle of your toddler's grocery store breakdown, that it will all pass by before you know it. And I guess that's true and maybe part of the reason this quote resonated with me. It's a reality check, and yes it does go by fast (and I'm just speaking to the baby years here) but let's be honest, if you sit down too long in silence and really think about all that's happened in those years,  its not all that fast at all!! Especially if you put yourself through it several times in a row:)! 

In fact what makes those more dependent years fast is not some kind a miracle of time travel, it is a sense of humor! I realized what I wanted to really write was an ode to the kind of sense of humor you have to have to be a really great mom. No one ever talks about that but it's a survival method and it's developed with experience and aged in all of us like a fine wine. There are two very interesting things moms have in common, they all love their kids and they all have a sense of humor, whether they realize it or not, that only comes about by the "pull yourself up by your boot straps" mentality of child rearing through the early years. We all handle parenting differently, but we all laugh at the same parenting jokes that we deep down, wrong or right, know to be somewhat true! Some of my favorites...

So in good humor I will tell you the honest feeling that swept across me after the door was shut and bolted for long enough for me to think straight.  Okay time for recon! I should use this time to go to the bookstore and finally have the time to figure out how I can fix all the problems that I have diagnosed the kids with over the years. Then I should work out, yes, that's perfect!! The better I feel the happier I am to deal with, right?! If moms happy the whole village sings! Oh yes, and the blog I have been neglecting...I will write a post!! And so I wrote the post (and that's all I had time for mind you)... and somewhat like parenting it has taken a different direction than I imagined. It has turn out nothing like I planned but it's real and it's funny, the rabbit trailing and all. It's funny like all the parenting shit that has blown my way in the the years of wiping bottoms, cleaning vomit, holding my foot against the bathroom door, trapping myself in A BATHROOM, just to hold on to what little privacy was left! So today I'm not setting out to fix a thing, I'm not going to try to figure out what to do with the rest of my life like my job as a parent has ended at the bus stop and I'm not going to think anything more about what I should have done differently. Today I'll take time to realize I'm a human being, I'm doing the best I can. I am both funnier and wiser because of all of what life has thrown at me and celebrate that more than anything it's my kids that have brought this out in me. They have taught me more about myself than I will ever be able to teach them. 

So I started this post with a diet coke and am ending it appropriately with a wine! Cheers to milestones! To babies growing up and to parents finding their sense of humor and celebrating it every once in awhile. Its not easy being a parent!

{CHEERS} 

Laura~

To Vincey, "my sweet sweet"