This is my first holiday season as an empty nester – my boys are both away at college – and it feels different. 

I was lucky enough to just spend an entire week in Colorado with my youngest son as a celebration of his high school graduation. Just the two of us hiking and exploring. It was wonderful.

Change is inevitable. It’s a fact of life.

But that doesn’t mean it is not sometimes terrifying and difficult to face.

I am in the middle of some big changes as my youngest son nears high school graduation and prepares to leave for college. I am back and forth between feeling fine and this odd panicky feeling. I know my life is going to change so much in the upcoming months. All of our lives are going to change.

My son spent most of his senior year of high school varsity soccer career sitting on the bench. It was really hard to watch, it hurt my mom heart.

School started on Monday and my youngest son began his senior year of high school.  Even typing that out I can’t believe this is where we are in life.

And Ferris Bueller’s statement continues to ring true “Life moves pretty fast.  If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

People keep telling me that boys are just...different. I finally realized what that means. Last week, my adorable, happy-go-lucky, sweet, little 19 month-old took his plastic baseball bat and cracked our flat screen tv. And then he laughed at me

I walk into the house and every single kitchen cabinet is open. There are bags of chips strewn on the floor and all of the tennis shoes are piled up under the table. Smashed goldfish are ground up into the grout of my kitchen tile. A toy is blasting the Baby Shark song on repeat. What the hell is going on?

This is what my house looks like on any given day now that we have a 17 month old who is walking and running full speed through the house. I was not prepared for this.

We had a big milestone in our house recently. My youngest son got his driver’s license. This has opened up so much for him, but also makes this mama’s heart ache and worry.

It is another step away from home. It’s another step towards growing up.

My oldest son is home for his winter break from college. He’s a sophomore at University of Maryland so not too far from home. This allows for a few visits for parent’s weekend and sporting events, plus a whole week for Thanksgiving.

His break is a full month, but it still doesn’t feel like enough.

Traditions are such a big part of what makes each family unique. They are so fun to create when kids are little, but I admit when my kids were little I went a bit overboard with the traditions.

Ok, maybe WAY overboard on the traditions.

My second son was not an easy child. He was spirited and stubborn and his emotions often seemed to overwhelm his little body. He was also a loving and sweet little boy with beautiful blond curls who laughed often and wanted to snuggle with me, but so often there were tears and breath holding.

I met my step-kids over 13 years ago.

Going in, I pictured a lovely relationship with both my stepchildren and their mother. I envisioned that their mom and I would be friends and text and talk about issues with the kids. I naively thought she would welcome me as another parent for her children. I thought we could have coffee together and talk about parenting. I was very naïve.

I dropped my oldest son off to college this week and my mama heart aches. I know he was feeling nervous and excited and likely a little scared too. The mama instinct is to bundle them back up in the car and take them back home, but instead you have to smile and drive away. You have to let them go.

This is the time of summer that I look at the calendar and panic that summer is almost over and we haven’t done anything “summery”.

I pretty much do this every year, despite the fact that 1) we have done “summery” things and 2) I know that I do this every year.

I follow a few different mom’s groups on Facebook and read a post this week that made me stop, re-read, and then respond. The mom was venting how stressed she was as a single mom with budgeting and taking her kids on their annual trip to Disney. She commented how she was feeling overwhelmed with money issues and budgeting and had stopped doing anything for herself. Anything at all, including taking care of herself. I could feel her level of stress just from reading her post.

She wanted to know if this was normal. And so many people responded that yes it was, that they were stressed too. And that they had put themselves aside too. The predominant response was that it was imperative to do everything for your kids and that basically it was a mom’s job to just suck it up and suffer.

What?!?!