all is well

Sometimes I worry.  I need not, but I do anyway.  I worry that I am not doing enough for my kids emotional and spiritual and academic education, I worry that as time passes I won't get everything done that needs to get done, I worry that my occasional grumpiness effects my kids in a negative way (my son recently wrote this sentence for the spelling word "alone.") 

My mom likes to be alone sometimes.

Made me laugh.  But also aware that he gets that I need and ask for that.  And that is a good and healthy thing.  We all need time alone.

I worry I don't give my kids enough time with me.  I try to find that balance of wife, mother, housekeeper, working mom, bill payer, gardener, travel planner, cook, nurse.  I need to also find time for correspondence, phone calls and emails, blogger, writing, exercise, eating, and of course, duh -- humor!

As my grandfather used to say, "When you own a home your work is never done.  It's just one round of enjoyment after another."

It's constant as you all know.

It suddenly feels like time is going by very fast.  I feel older than I did in my 20's, a new mother with a fresh freckled face.  For so long I felt like I was still 19, well into my 30's, but I don't feel that way anymore, now that I am clearly not in my 30's.   Now that Sky has turned 14 I think constantly about the fact that she is going to grow up and want to spread her wings.  And the others will follow.  My kids all have big dreams.  I know them well.  I know their strengths, I know their weaknesses.  I want to make sure I give them what they need to best succeed in this world.

But I have come to see that these kids are not just mine, not just ours.  They are God's.  And Gary and I are not alone in raising them.

So when I start to worry I remind myself of this and I look at how the last few years have actually been a series of fortunate events that mostly have happened with little effort on my part.  God's grace and goodness and blessings are always flowing.

Especially when the girls happen to run into an old friend they haven't seen in years and they get to goof off in the pool for a couple of hours, and renew the friendship.

I am a planner.  But I have come to see that so much of the best things in life happen without any plans.  I am writing this so I remember it when I start to worry again.