Where Does The Time Go?

I was looking at dear cherubs yesterday and wondering where all the time went.  I remember when they were babies and I would be so tired that I would gate us all into our family room and try to take a quick nap while still keeping an eye on them.  I would lay there almost unable to move from sheer exhaustion and wish that they were older so life would be a little easier and less exhausting.  

Now, I look back and realize that as they grow older, my daily life doesn't seem any easier or less exhausting.  It is just that my exhaustion is from different things.  I am not tired from chasing them around so they don't get into mischief or hurt, or from the nightly wakings for a bottle or a little love.  I am not tired from trying to physically juggle 2 children and laundry basket while maneuvering down our narrow staircase.  

I am tired from worry.  Worry about so many silly and not so silly things.  Are they healthy? Happy?  Do they have friends?  The right kind of friends?  I still worry about them getting into mischief, but such a different kind.  They are still so young, but so much older than I ever was at that age.  I am having a hard time figuring out how, when, and most importantly what to let go.  How much space do I give them and at what age?  Can my 11 year old go to the movies with friends, but sans an adult?  What curfew do I give my 14 year old as he heads out to Friday Night Lights?  

They have grown so quickly.  They have grown so much.  I can only hope that everything I have said and taught them, someway, somehow has made it into the far recesses of their maturing brains.  I think my kids are smart.  I think my kids are compassionate.  I think my kids know right from wrong.  I can only hope that what I think is true.  I can only hope that as they venture out into the world without me, they remember all the rules, morals and codes Mr. P and I have inundated them with since birth.  

I have recently had some heart to hearts with dear cherubs and for the sake of not wanting them to have to remember my very long laundry list of do's and don'ts of living in a moral society, I have narrowed it down to the basics.  And if only a few make it with them out into the big, bad world I hope they are the following:

Be Good, Behave, Be Careful - I got this from dear mother (we call it the 3 B's)

Look and Listen

Stick Together

Play Fair

FLUSH

Say You're Sorry - and mean it

If you don't want mom and dad to see it, hear it or know about it - DON'T put it out there 

You can't take it back ( AND WE WILL FIND OUT!)

And most importantly - the one that I think many people always forget -

Treat EVERYONE  you meet with the utmost of DIGNITY and RESPECT

And even if they don't get it ALL right, ALL the time, I know that dear cherubs get it right at least SOME of the time and for now, that's good enough for me.

We still have a few years left to work on it.