Early Morning Thoughts

There are many mornings where I get up early, just can't sleep for thinking about a million things that enter my mind and just won't go away.

Anyone else?

I think about nonsense like what I have to do that day, what I might make for dinner and who is going where.

Other times, like this morning, I think about how we ended up where we are.

What the meaning of it all is.

Deep for a Tuesday.

It's funny how life goes - one small thing can change everything.

When I signed up for this ride we call parenting, I never really knew what I signed up for.

So many joys - and a lifetime of worry.

My mother-in-law, a very wise woman who has raised two children of her own, simplifies it best.

Small children, small problems. Big children, big problems.

Coordinating after-daycare pick ups that transition to walking home alone from school that one day become friends picking them up in their actual cars and driving them somewhere.

I don't think my own mother worried this much. In her own sometime ignorance, she found bliss.

Do we just know too much?

Or is that when you are the one actually going through it, it just all seems so much bigger.

 Ms. Ava Grace lost her first tooth yesterday.

This milestone event signified the fact I already knew.

My baby is growing up and in just a few years she will be asking to leave me for 3 weeks to roam Italy - sigh and life is moving forward.

I've been reevaluating what is most important.

A lot.

And it seems that in the end, this parenting journey comes down to one thing - and that's loving your children well.

That love will get them through.

That love will make them think wisely - guide them in the tough decisions and even in the not so tough ones.

This early morning I realize how fortunate I am.

And how unimportant little things like begging them for what feels like the 100th time to make their beds are.

When I think back on my own childhood, it's the things that didn't seem like much at the time that I remember most. 

We need to do more of that.

Sometimes I think I just need to stop thinking so much and trust that love will guide them.

I'm trying.

and also, what is the going rate for the tooth fairy these days? it's been far, far too long.