Times, They Are A-Changing

It feels like everything is changing lately.  Summer is coming to a close, Cael is melting down gearing up about another year of school, and even the constant drought that has killed off most of the corn is finally coming to a close with low hanging clouds that sporadically drip and drizzle like a wet washcloth left in the bathtub after Cael used it as a vehicle to deliver soapy water to Graham's eyes.

The Cedar River after the drought pulled the drain plug.

But I guess some things never change.

That's the thought that danced in my head when I opened my eyes this morning-- the morning before Cael's first day of school.  Because no matter how much the kid tests my patience, and my oh my, is he skilled in that regard, there is an ever-growing part of me that wants to sit him up on my mantle like a beautiful oil painting and admire his sweet face everyday.  To completely halt the passing of time and freeze him just as he is, an enigma of dirty fingernails and potty jokes and long lashes and curls like spun gold and big, blue eyes that look to me as though I hold the key to every door he longs to unlock.

My mantle could use brightening.

But instead, time ticks ahead as I dig my heels in the ground.  It pushes me past my comfort zone and into a new dimension of reality where I can't always influence his world.  A dimension with kids I don't know and lessons I didn't teach.  A dimension that, admittedly, I am insufficient and unqualified to tackle, but I know that with each step he takes from my outstretched hand, he walks farther from that small, soapy-headed toddler roughhousing in the bathtub, and closer to his future and the man he'll become.  When he gets there, I hope he'll look back and feel that I taught him something valuable.  Something about love, or something about respect.  Heck, I'd settle for something about trains.

Even though this is only my second year as the mother of a student, I can tell that it will always be a sentimental time for me.  Letting go is never easy, especially when the thing you're releasing is the thing you've been holding onto the most tightly.  The thing you feel that you're the only one truly capable of holding.

Cael on his first day of preschool, 2011.

But I'll get used to it.  After all, while Cael takes those steps into his classroom and toward whatever bright future he sees for himself, Graham will be at home, throwing wet toilet paper at the wall and wearing my bras on his head.

There are still hands to hold.