Reality Sets In Three Fold For Me As A Mom...In One Morning.

That time for them has finally come to pass. No longer are they small, helpless, needy children. Now they are increasingly independent, strong, knowledgeable 'tweens'.

In one fail swoop, I'm being forced to not only start letting go of one of the three, but TWO of them at one time. And it will only get more difficult to do so as the next few years fly by.

Hayley started walking the five minutes to school last week, but still coming home on the bus. Now, her brother who is seventeen months her junior is starting to walk to school as well. And again, come home on the bus.

Which in turn has forced my (soon to be) six year old to be a "big girl" and ride the school bus on her own. But starting last week, she started riding ONE day a week after school to come home, being that both Hayley and Bryce are now in the after school program of Art Club.

This coming Thursday, Hayley, who is my oldest, will be eleven. Lord how these years have just flown on past. It's been a ride thus far. And with her mature attitude being more of a fourteen year old, her wings are spreading faster than I had hoped.

The week after, Skyler, who is the "baby" of the family will be six! So, soon, she will no longer officially be a "baby" of sorts to the world. She will no longer be a toddler or a preschooler. She will be an adolescent. Again, I am at a loss of where all the years have gone. Like a wind, they blew past with nary a care of what a mother's heart feels.

When I watched (through the closed front door's glass) Hayley and Bryce cross the street and head down the block towards school, I had them flash in my head as they were when they were little. I saw them as they used to be. Suddenly, I got back in to the reality of what I was witnessing, and for a brief moment, longed for those days once more.

Then, watching Skyler cross from about half way at the bus stop on her own (I walked her half way in to the street) to get on to it alone for the first time, my heart sank and I had to fight my wanting to walk her the rest of the way, it hurt to know that she too has stepped one closer away from me and becoming her own individual.

In these two brief moments of one morning, I wished to God I could stop time. Just for a few seconds. I wanted to turn back the clock to the times where they inherently needed me to the fullest extent. I have witnessed this morning the anxiety of a mother "losing" their children to the world. All at once. Each one making their own individual paths in the world.

How many ways can a mother's heart ache and break? Many. Including watching them all take their own paths in society and forming their own identities.

It's one thing to watch them do this one at a time. But to see all three of your children do this on different levels at once is completely overwhelming. Gone are the days of cooing, learning to walk and talk, being dependent even on me for the simplest of things and asking silly questions such as why the sky is one color and the ground another.

These are the days where you are extremely proud of who you are raising your children to be. But it sucks also, because in the same thought, you wish you could do it all over again with them and keep time as it is.