Our Kids Grow Up Too Dang Fast!

A Facebook post from a very teary-eyed day last week.

Dave and I married later in life which made our timing for a big family pretty nill. It's not to say we didn't try, but it was not in the cards for Mason to have siblings. That makes me a little sad as I think siblings teache us invaluable lessons about ourselves and life. Oh well, it was not meant to be. With that said, I've made it known since the day Mason was born, "I'm not missing it." Dave would say, "Missing what?" I would always reply, "Not a minute of any of it. Field trips, dances, holidays, birthdays, you name it...I'm not missing a minute of my mommy journey with Mason." I built my career around flexibility and I have not missed a moment, although I have had to share with Dave on occasion, if I couldn't be there, Dave has been. As Mason winds down his time in middle school, it's been emotional for me, and let me share with you, for him, too. 

In the last three years, Mason has grown easily 7 inches, he now has body hair, and his voice is completely different. He slid that voice thing in under the wire of the completion of his 8th-grade year. The cracks and squeaks when he talks are just too funny not to acknowledge. He's learned some valuable life lessons and blessed me with the honor of bouncing his ideas about these different situations off of me. I hope he always feels like he can talk to me, and even more so, that I have good insight into what life might be trying to teach him. So far, so good. 

It's just so hard to see him so close to going out on his own. We have four more years of school and then it's time to see him off to college. As of right now, he does not like the idea that Dave and I want to relocate to the eastern part of the United States, but I think as he gets closer to going off to college, his fears will subside, I hope they do. He's always been independent and had a wanderlust for life, but he also really loves our time together as a family. For now, we are surviving the perfect storm of puberty and menopause and hopefully, I can let him go enough through the next four years that he won't feel like he needs to break away. 

Now we are heading into the last week of middle school and looking forward to summertime! I am working on a movie the month of June and Mason has two cooking demos scheduled in July. Dave is doing the work he needs to finish his Bachelor's degree and prepare to retire after 33 years of military service, that happens officially in February 2019. You can rest assured we will be filling in all those other days with time on our boat at the lake, making more memories that will make my heart happy that I didn't miss a minute of being Mason's mom.