chipped nails and stacks of mail and practicing my mom skills all over again

Those are two things that bother me.

Stacked mail.
Chipped fingernail polish.

The mail, staring at me and demanding that I take action, makes me feel like I’m running behind and will never catch up.

As I type and I see the bits of pink and bits of gray on my fingernails because I thought – this time, this time – I will paint my own nails and keep up with their maintenance.

It’s difficult to keep it all together, even in the summer when keeping it all together is less structured and requires less effort.

May and June were busy little months, full of trips and drives and graduations and weddings and you all already know this because you’re all living the same months that I am living.

My youngest just finished elementary school and I will never have an elementary student again.

I volunteered to drive on a youth river tubing trip today and when four middle school boys were assigned to my Yukon I was reminded of the many ways my days and my story and my season are shifting.

For years and years and years I have known my children’s friends extremely well. They’ve been in and out of my home and I have taken road trips with their entire families and I have eaten dinner at their tables and I have hiked miles with them and I can remember some cute phrases they used to say and which stuffed animals they loved best.

Oh it was a beautiful season and I can sincerely say I did not take it for granted and I tasted its goodness even as I lived it.

And then there in my backseat, along with my youngest son, was an entirely new batch of buddies. Friends of his from youth group. New families. Unknown to me. They called me “Otto’s mom”. Which I’m pleased to be. But still.

I’m seeing that a new season is beginning. New relationships. New ins and outs of my house and if I want to reach Otto’s senior year with tender feelings for all his fellow graduating buddies, I have to put in the labor right now.

I have to drive the big car to the river and I have to join in the conversation about Teslas and Amazon Prime trucks and fishing. I think I hadn’t realized what a mostly girl house I’d been living in. Obviously I’ve had sons for sixteen years but it’s not an exaggeration to say that the girls have dominated our home for most of that same time.

I know that Otto is living a life that looks drastically different than his siblings did at his age. For an entire host of reasons of which this blog is filled.

As we were floating down the Green River today, my friend Katie and I laughed about the differences our children are experiencing from us as parents. (She’s so easy to laugh with. Everyone needs a Katie in their lives.)

When Riley was Otto’s age the world inside our home was a very ordered and regulated place. Meals happened at specific times and bedtimes were strictly maintained. When London and Mosely and Bergen were Otto’s age, much of this routine and structure remained secure. Monday breakfast was always oatmeal. Tuna was served at least once a week for lunch. This was the way life happened. The rails were in place and the train was on track.

If you asked Otto about breakfast these days, he would probably say Mom no longer makes it. He’s not all that wrong.

Sometimes these changes hurt me. They make me feel as if I am offering my youngest a lesser version of a childhood. And that stings.

But I also know, simultaneously, the way we know most truths that bring us to the familiar bittersweet that is our daily bread, that Otto is living a good life, a valuable life, a treasured life. He knows he is loved. He knows he is cared for.

Our days have lost some of their idyllic sticky sweetness that my big kids were able to revel in. The life that included patchwork quilts spread out on the lawn and iced lemonade and stories about squirrels with personalities. He’s a sturdy kid with strong legs and an even stronger sense of wonder and if you asked him, I’m guessing he’d tell you he’s pretty happy and he likes his life, even if he never knows what will be for breakfast on any given Monday.

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