My kids are growing up.  We’ve been watching this happen from a distance to a lot of our friends.  But, it isn’t real until it happens to you. 

To be a good parent, you need to have a healthy dose of modesty.  Think about it.  If you do your job, your kids will pass you by.  If you’re good at it, they’ll kick your *&%.  If you’re great, your kids will learn that happiness is the real goal, and they’ll live their lives doing things that promote a sense of wellbeing. 

Patty and I have done our best.  We’re a happy couple.  She forgives me when I’m a chest thumping Neanderthal.  I forgive her when she, um....when she....let me think......well, the next time she’s in need of forgiving, I’ll be all over it. 

I’m a dude, after all, I like to win, lead, charge ahead, be right, fix stuff, make it happen, be witty, and alpha male my way to the top of the pile.  Occasionally, I’ll haplessly knock over the china.  She’s calm, sweet, patient, loving, nurturing, quiet and gentle.  The china is perfectly safe in her hands.  Looking at the two of us, I’d say it’s a perfect match.  If she’d married someone like her, she’d be living in a tent and driving a VW bus with peace signs, if I’d have married someone like me, there would have been blood and I’d have a roommate with a gold tooth. 

Thank God for a match of opposites. 

Truth be told though, I’m also artistic and gentle too.  I love the outdoors, biking, backpacking, kayaking, and spending time in the quiet.  I like to sing and play the piano.  I proudly play Mozart, Dvorak, and Tchaikovsky, but also jam 70’s Rock and 80’s Metal.  My personality profile suggests that I’m an introvert, which surprises everyone except the girl who is calm, sweet, patient, loving, etc, etc.  She knows that quiet time is what recharges my batteries.

Patty and I have placed a great emphasis on values that matter.  Faith, friendship, good food, good rest, helping others, good work, and exercise. 

Ok, enough preaching.

This blog is about the reality kick in the pants that comes with watching your babies become adults.  It’s about things we’re experiencing, doing, forgetting, and will hopefully give you some idea of what to expect with a few chuckles along the way.

Enjoy the ride...............

The below facebook post was the final catalyst to attempt a blog thanks to my friend Susan and many others who have encouraged me to write with some degree of consistency. 

We were driving along in our 1995 Saturn, heading toward Naperville to visit some friends. She was only a few months old, and I suppose the car ride wasn’t her idea of fun because she started to fuss. I like to sing. I’m not sure how good I am, but if you live in my house, you get to hear plenty of it. I’d recently picked up “Poems, Prayers and Promises” by the late John Denver, and a beautiful song came to mind. I changed the words a bit and began..........”Baby, my sweet baby. Do your tears belong to me? Did you think our time together, was all gone. Baby, my sweet baby, I’m as close as I can be.........”

Quiet. Like a little mouse, she listened to her Daddy and my heart melted.

So right away, I had her...or maybe she had me. Dad’s fall in love with their little girls in ways hard to describe. We’ll pick flowers and play dolls, we’d size up an NFL linebacker if we felt them a threat, and we’ll watch Power Puff girls on the TV.....anything just to be close to them.

And then one day, they’re driving, doing stuff with their friends, holding hands with a boy, leading others, and basically expressing their independence. And it makes me extraordinarily proud.

And then one day they're leaving.

Then one day it “hits you” that in a few days, you’re going to be the one sitting in the car crying. But it’s ok. They’ll be good tears and I’ll get to share them with my cute German girl on the way home from college. And we’ll both be beaming.

I remember the independent young woman that left Germany to join life’s adventure with me and I can’t help but comparing her to Audrey.  She, who fearlessly looks at this next page in her life without apprehension, but with enthusiasm and the same quiet resolve as her mother. I’m happy her apple fell close to Patty’s tree.

As if Williamsburg isn’t far away enough, soon we’ll be preparing for the next journey, getting Hannah ready to realize her dream to serve with missionaries at a clinic in Haiti.

Someone pass me a tissue........I can hardly see to type.

  

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