They’re Growing Up

By Wanda Bingaman

I’ve seen the group of women writers I’ve been included in and let’s just say I’m 1- so incredibly honored to even been thought of when this list was being made and 2- so incredibly SCARED!! Y’all I’m not a writer! I’m just a recovering stay at home mom who talks a lot……  I have no great story to tell to inspire or warn you, I’m not super passionate about an amazing cause, I’m just me.

If you’re still with me, here goes…..

What’s going on in Wanda’s World?!?!

It’s summer. I spent so many summers past dreading the arrival. I was a SAHM and an award winning volunteer- I had a life! Then summer would come and it would all come to a head. Hot weather, crazy kids who would scream and cry and fight.  ALL THE TIME. I never had the feeling like I could go out in public with them. I’d be this (mostly) put together person during the school year and then come summer, I’d turn into “redneck momma”- screeching and swatting bottoms. They were wild, crazy little boys, but man, they were cute!!

But, now I have two teenagers. My oldest has his driver’s license and his first job!!  He’s halfway finished with high school- he’ll be off in two years, I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this. My younger is into his video games and will spend hours playing, holed up in his room. The last year or so, it’s been amazing to do things with them- they are so fun these days!!! And there hasn’t been one fight over who sits in the front seat in forever!!! I can leave them in the car and don’t have worry about one then chasing the other one inside as he’s screaming “he’s trying to kill me!”- ask me how many times that happened in the past…….

And now I’m alone a lot and it’s quiet. So very quiet.

How can I prepare them for the big bad world out there and still hold them close to me?!?!  I so want them to be happy and successful, even if that means they are far away. I really do want this. Really. I also want them to stay with their dad and I and we be our own foursome. When they were little (and now….) we didn’t live near family- it was the four of us together- no weekends away with the grandparents, none of this “stay a week away” nonsense- the four of us ALL THE TIME. Except when husband went away (military) and it was the three of us. I’ve tried so hard not to be a helicopter mom and with the end in sight, it’s hard not to keep the boys in the house and never let them out.

Why is it when you get what you want, it’s not what you need?!?!

Balance. Where is the balance in keeping your babies with you and letting them fly away and become adults?!?!