No, I am not winding down this blog. I actually have come to enjoy blogging and the variety of folks I get to connect with via this blog, I find blogging to be rather cathartic at times.
No, today’s title comes from the fact that living in Maine, the Labor Day holiday marks the beginning of the end of summer, less tourists, summer establishments will start closing soon and life starts returning to some semblance of normal.
However this weekend also marks the end of elder child’s summer time with me, tomorrow morning he will get up and fly 1100 miles back to his Pops house and get ready to return to school. Joint custody has ruled my life for most of elder child’s existence, in the early years he was with me but he has been with his Pops for a while now. I am blessed that despite the unorthodox way he has been raised, bounding between two folks who truly do not get along that the boy has always thrived.
This summer also revealed to me that the my first baby while he will always be my baby at 16.5 is not much of a baby anymore, at 6’2 and now shaving, he is a young man. I admit that having another man in the house this summer at times was frustrating but overall this summer was a blast but also a reminder that realistically there is probably only one more full summer left that he will spend with me, since I suspect the summer after high school may be spent preparing for college which at the moment seems to be the path he wishes to take with his life.
As parents we spend so much time dealing with the day to day minutia of parenting that it gets easy to forget that the end goal is to raise kids who will turn into fully functioning adults. I was reminded of this after talking with an old sista-friend yesterday who is trying to figure out how to get her almost 24 year old son out the nest. Her son is a good kid but is on the extended college plan and for his Mama who had him early like I had my son, she always thought by 24 he would be out in the world by now. Of course part of the unknowns with parenting is that we never know how are kids will turn out.
I won’t get cocky yet since I know anything can happen, but this summer as I watched my son navigate travel to visit friends and family in the area, I was struck by his confidence. One night we debated about the Iranian president who elder child calls a goon the US should be mindful of since if we get froggy, the Iranians will not go out like the Iraqi’s. I marveled that at 16, he thought about this stuff, then was reminded that I raised him to think about more than his own life and to also think outside of the box.
While I don’t see eye to eye with my ex-husband on most things, hence why he is an ex, there is a real sense that my son took the best we both have in our souls and ran with it.
So today marks a time where I start the slow walk to letting go of baby boy yet knowing as the years go by, mothering will take on new challenges, after all adults still need their parents too.
For my baby boy who I know peeps Momma’s blog from time to time, its been a good summer and we eagerly await your return in November. In the mean time I will enjoy the last bits if summer before we fade into fall.
In light of elder child leaving this week and another critical client deadline, my posts may be a tad sporadic for a few days until I adjust back into being a household of 3, though by mid week I should be back with regular posting since I do have some issues I want to talk about. So stay tuned.