Back to School

First I have to start off how fast the summer went. Bryttany and Kent had summer camp, I ran the 1/2 marathon, Aubrey played with her little cousin Tessa and we all went to Colorado. We have been home for two weeks and bam, school starts. Every year I have a different emotion it seems with back to school. Sometimes I am happy(I know; most horrible mom in the world) sometimes I am sad, sometimes I am neither and there has been the all of above too!

So this is the emotion I have this year, I don't know. Does that count as an emotion? My youngest child is 5th grade, and she still likes me. She will still sit on the couch and watch TV. She still likes to play games and values what I say to her. She looks forward to our family nights but she also likes to play with her friends, a lot. There is still a good balance of family and friends. And get this, she still lets me kiss her in public, GASP! I know, it is almost impossible to believe. Thank goodness I still have her to remind me of why I had children and why God didn't make me a lion, they eat their young ya know!

How many of you have teenagers or at least children in Jr High? I now feel your pain. One day my oldest daughter woke up and she was replaced by this thing I do not recognize. She has to shower, wears make-up, spends more time on her hair than I do, wears my shoes(without asking I might add) tolerates me and her dad. All I know is friends with older girls, could have given me a little warning? It is not that Bryttany is a bad kid, she isn't. She gets straight A's, is in student council, plays softball, helps me cook dinner, is responsible. You get the picture. I know I have nothing to complain about and plenty to be thankful for. But all I know is everyday a little more and more of my daughter whose biggest concern was cuddle time and being a good big sister is being replaced by a young woman who has the whole world to go out and explore and it isn't going to be our hands that she turns around to grasp, but I do know it will be our arms she will always come running to when she wants to come home.