Within Bounds

They grow up.  It's a fact. It happens one day at a time, so slowly it's almost imperceptible.  But then things happen to make you notice.

The training wheels come off and she's racing down the road on her own.

Those chubby little fingers are now long and slender, nothing like those first handprints.

"I can do it by myself" are the words that shoo you away when your automatic reaction is to step in and help.

Once favorite books and television shows are now for "babies".

Curves are coming on.

Teeth are at the point of needing braces.

Talking on the phone with the BFF is a daily "need".

I look into the eyes of each of my children and sigh in wonder.  Where has the time gone?  My oldest just turned ten.  Perhaps his time at home with us is half over.  My girls show the makings of beautiful women more and more each time I look.

The boundaries I've set up to keep them safe begin to become too narrow.  They're itching to ride their bikes the full length of our road.  I take them for walks and they race off on their bikes, out of my sight as I move more slowly, pushing the youngest in the stroller.  I know they are okay, but I think of how much more I need to teach them about strangers, about rules of safety.  I think of getting them whistles to wear around their necks.

Their interest in the computer becomes more keen.  For now it's Webkinz and games like Mindcraft, but I dread the day when they want a facebook account. Though I swear now that they will never have one under my roof, I realize these are the words of a mom who's oldest is ten. I know nothing yet of raising teens.  The sad and disconcerting local news of a fifteen year old girl missing... and found dead over a week later... seemingly in relation to a false facebook identity... well, it makes a mom want to hug tighter and cinch the boundaries even closer.  And it ought to.

But with the realization that these little ones are growing up.  They will always need me, but they will not always need these boundaries.  The lines we don't allow them to cross- like using potty language and staying in our line of vision- will disappear and new lines will be drawn.  Over and over again until hopefully, prayerfully, they've gained the wisdom they need to create their own personal boundaries of safety and righteousness.

Until then, this mama bear seeks to protect and prepare them for the world that lies around the corner.  For now, that corner is on our little road in the country.  Someday, they'll turn the corner into the wide, wide world.

 Lord, be with us at every turn.