#tbt

This one is getting ready to graduate.

 

9 days old

I attended the initial “interest meeting” for a homeschool-parent-planned graduation ceremony.

2 weeks old

One of the many benefits of homeschooling is that you get to collectively pick the date for high school graduation, which is proving tricky, not least because my eldest is graduating from college at the same time.

7 weeks old

I was recently discussing with a friend with a son of similar age how much having a child who can drive is helpful overall.

2 months old

As in, yes, she can get herself where she needs/wants to go, AND she can take her siblings places…but it also rapidly multiplies how many places she wants/needs to go, leaving my middle-aged head spinning to try to remember where everyone is at any given moment and who needs a ride from whom.

13 months old

What with extra appointments and Caleb’s soccer team unexpectedly deciding to practice at the field a gazillion miles away from us, we told Ada she had to come home after her morning work/classes and pick up Lizzy for volleyball, lest I completely lose my mind.

That time one of the times she was hospitalized for wheezing, almost 2 years old

I realize—especially as she shortly celebrates her eighteenth birthday—that it’s tiresome to clear every detail of her life with her mom first, especially when her mom’s addled brain can’t remember anything without immediately writing it down.

Home from the hospital

Ah, youth, with its intrepid thirst for adventure that drives us to fly the nest. I, too, at seventeen, wanted nothing more than to strike out and do All The Things with All The People. 

And then I met my one person, and my greatest desire became to settle down.

4 years old

And then I procreated four other people. And now my greatest desire is to wear pj’s and leave the car parked in the garage. 

Home repairs

After we had the living room ceiling ripped out, Jason bought a water detector and a camera scope that he used to search every nook and cranny of our house between the upstairs bathroom at the east end of the house (where the Incident occurred) to the downstairs HVAC closet at the west end (where the result of the Incident was discovered in the form of an unwelcome waterfall).

After DIY replacing a bulging balloon of an HVAC flex that was threatening to burst over our couch any minute, at last it was determined that we were water-free.

So we got a new ceiling.

Gary, endlessly generous grandpa and home fixer extraordinaire, spent a few days painting.

And then—we moved the furniture back in, oh happy day.

We still have the dining room chandelier to replace as it seems to have gotten damaged in the chaos, but everything else is, thankfully, back as it should be.

Flying

 

Under our balcony, where we often eat lunch, birds like to make nests in the eaves. Jason doesn’t like it because he says it’ll rot the house or something, but I find the drama of mama bird flitting in to feed her chirping babies endearing.

Unfortunately, some birds seem to be better at nesting than others. We have found dead, underdeveloped baby birds smashed on the concrete under the nests before. I don’t know if it was a random mishap, or a stiff breeze, or baby walked to close to the edge and didn’t listen to mama saying don’t do that, but that bird leaving the nest was the last thing it ever did.

Here we are still getting used to Jeddy having an actual permanent address that’s not ours, and already the next birdie is getting ready to fly.

Unfortunate smooshed birds notwithstanding, it’s not the possibility of my birdie plummeting to disaster that scares me.

My fear is that she’ll soar. 

I know her wings are strong and healthy and there’s no reasonable danger in her perching on the very edge of the nest. Soon she’ll step off, and flap away…and she’ll be completely fine. She won’t need me to bring her worms or sit on her to keep her warm anymore. She’ll soar, and she’ll flourish, and she’ll succeed, away from us. And we won’t get to see it up close.

Is it true that mama birds push the babies out to force them to fly? I don’t know (Lizzy would know). Maybe some of them have to. 

But maybe there are some that the mama bird kinda wishes would stay a little bit longer. Maybe those mamas have to be brave birdies to watch that baby step onto the edge and jump out, waving goodbye and heading for the clouds.

Wordless Wednesday