High Bar

Today we began our third week of school. During one quiet moment the boy comment that school was so hard this year. He asked why we cared so much about his progress and how well he was doing on school work. The only words I came up with are these...

I ask a lot of you,

only because

I ask that & more of myself.

I don't know if he will find that reassuring or not, as he stumbles and careens through this first year of middle school. This year of changes and pitfalls, and growth unlike any year before.

But it is the truth.

I do ask a lot of both the boy and the girl, and I do ask that much of myself and more. I always have... and it's likely that I always will.

But I will be there beside them - not to claim ownership of their successes or failures, but to help them when they ask, to cheer them on when they think they cannot go one 'more', to ease the pain of failure when it happens, and to tuck them in at night after a long day of school, studies, and the hard physical work of taekwondo or ballet.

It's hard as a mama to let the boy spread his wings and see how well he can fly, to resist the urge to save him from the bruises and tears of growing up. But for him to be successful, to grow and be all that he dreams, I must.

It's what was asked of me, what I ask of them, and what they one day may ask of theirs.