image courtesy Pixabay
by Kelli Bowen
Times of change are the times when a person feels the most, at least for me. Tomorrow morning my children will go to school as a 6th and 3rd grader for the last time. They’ll be going to their school, the only one they’ve known, for the last time. I will go sit on the street and wait for them to come to the car and tell me about their day as Squirrels for the last time.
We may have spent our last few day streak in our house. Each day as we box up our belongings and take apart furniture, we get one step closer to the last time we sleep in this house, the last time we cook a meal in our nice big kitchen, and the last time we watch the sunrise in the backyard or sunset down the street.
Tomorrow will be the last time I send an 8-year old to school. Miss A will turn 9 over the summer.
Tomorrow might be the last time the girls hug certain friends. Some of these people they see every day will most likely be completely gone from their lives after tomorrow at 1:30.
I feel such a mixture of emotion, from gratitude and excitement for the opportunities yet to come, to sadness and resentment toward the absence of support and presence as we round out our life on this side of the state.
I question every decision and worry I’m sending my kids to therapy in one moment and then think we are making the best decision for them the next.
As I try to convince the girls to sign up for camps and classes over the summer, any time they turn me down, I wonder if it is because they truly “just want to chill” or if they are regressing or avoiding engaging in their new community. Then the next minute, they’ll do or say something that reassures me that they’re great and I’m the one overthinking. I mean, how many kids go practice yoga poses in the Badlands on a Sunday night for fun???? That’s pretty cool.
I heard once, or maybe I made this up, that if you worry about screwing up your kids, that’s a great indicator that you care as a parent. I question my choices from one moment to the next, so I must be mom of the year! Now, where’s that packing tape…
Kelli makes her home in Billings County with her husband, two daughters (11 and 8) and a dog. She works for North Dakota's #1 tourist destination by day and tries to be an alright mom, wife, friend, and writer by night.
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