My kids are only 20 months apart in age and only another mother with small kids and virtually no help will understand what that means...life was a frenzied round of feeding, cleaning, washing, soothing small hurts, frantic trips to the paediatrician. There were even a few desperate times when I sat down with my two howling infants and cried a little myself!

Well, in those days I used to look ahead to the future and dream of the time when they'd be bigger and life would be easier. Now they've grown into teenagers. In many ways life is easier.

But I wish now that instead of having been  so tense and harried all the time, I had relaxed  and enjoyed life a little more, enjoyed the cute things small kids do and say...the uninhibited love and caresses they offer.

  They're still wonderful kids, but of course they don't need me that much any more.
While I love to see them grow into independent and confident young individuals, I do know also that they are poised to take off any day..to follow their own dreams...make their own lives...which is the way it should be, but somewhere inside there's a little tear because I know that while I'll probably always be important to them, I should not any longer try to protect them from hurts and mistakes, that any interference in their lives now would be resented, that I need to let them stretch out their wings and soar while I stand below and wave goodbye.