Mom To Adults

          When Kerri was little she asked me to promise her I would live until she was 100 years old. I promised. That will make me a spry 128. I was twelve when my own mom died and for such a long time I've wanted very much to be a mom to adults. Of course living until Kerri is 100 will make me a mom to old people, but that's okay.
          I can think of so many things from when the kids were small that I am so thankful for. It's not like I was wishing away their young years so I could have adult children. We (people who love small children) experience so many little things that we need to pay attention to because they (the special moments) are here for such a fleeting moment: 
          Ryan getting off the bus a very upset first-grader. Problem: the big kids on the bus were making fun of a kid named Jimmy, and that wasn't right. He was downright angry. Ryan getting off the bus the following day, smiling broadly as he announced he figured out what to do about Jimmy. He'd decided to sit with him so Jimmy wouldn't be alone when those sixth graders picked on him. Ryan's dad asking him if he'd been concerned that the big kids might make fun of him, too. "No, I didn't think about that." No one made fun of Jimmy.  There's a brave kid with a big heart.

First grader Ryan

           Asking Ashley, so often easily bruised by what others said and or did, who had come downstairs for school in a rather funky looking outfit, if she was certain that was what she wanted to wear. "Of course. Mom, if I went to school with a pizza box on my head, the next day ALL the kids would come to school wearing a pizza box hat." There's a kid struggling with confidence but showing a whole lot of it.

Ashley in something sensible Mom no doubt picked out

          Kerri, seeing me in tears over who-knows-what (there were a lot of them in those early days): "Mommy, PRAY", while wrapping me in her gigantic one-of-a-kind hug. There's a loving little kid with a lot of faith.

Kerri - don't you just want to hug her?

          I wouldn't trade those (and so many more) special moments with my children for anything. They are tucked carefully away in my heart room and I pull them out from time to time and without fail they give me a special kind of comfort. Sometimes I don't need to pull them out, a precious memory will just pop out at the perfect time.           
          The moments I treasure these days are very different, but ones I had hoped for many times.  

• Hearing Ryan tell me something about his son - well, there's an experience Webster forgot to find any words for. 
• Having Ashley call me from the West Coast just because - there's a girl who could help Webster create a whole new volume. Volumes. 
• Getting off the phone with Kerri for the eleventh (or twenty-third) time that day. So many words, all treasured, many perhaps not necessary but I don't want to let even one slip away. We'll use up all Webster's words and start making our own. 

          After any one of these phone conversations, I end the call and whisper a tiny thanks for that answered prayer:   I am a mom to adults at last.