This morning, while grabbing my allotted two minutes of toilet time, my daughter yelled through the door.

"Mom! Mumble, mumble..."

"Just a sec," I call back as I begin to pull up my pants.
I open the door a crack.

"What did you say?"

"I need you to sign this permission slip," she says as she hands it to me, while I'm still zipping my pants. "It's due today."

I feel a little annoyed as I take the paper. "Can't Dad sign it?" I ask.

"Well, no," she says. " He's in the bathroom."


15

Today my baby turned 15, and tonight, all his friends bailed on him. For a while, anyway.

And in those few moments, when it seemed he’s be stuck with us at home… instead of hanging out with friends, I had to go into the bathroom and hang my head to cry. For him. And for me. Because he’s 15. And it’s no longer my job to make sure he and his friends are playing nice. It’s him. Against the world. 

I never knew it would be this hard. these little baby steps to independence... only they aren't really baby steps anymore. He's running full bore.

The friends did come around. He went out, and had a good time. I was glad for him. 

But it's so sad for me.



I'll admit it. I'm way behind on this blog thing, and for a while, bought into the myth that blogging was for people with way too much time on their hands.

But then I found a few blogspots that impressed me. And I met the author or them, and she impressed me even more. So with a little encouragement from her, I'm jumping in.

I am a writer by trade, but mostly by nature. Always thought about writing a book... have a couple kid stories done but unpublished... but am now a working mom, and don't have nice chunks of time to do stuff like think quietly and write a book.

But I do think, and have stuff to share. So I'm gonna give this a try. Because buried underneath my parenting and wife-ing and keeping everyone happy there's someone else. And she deserves to be let out.