three hundred words a day. july 2.

I frequently tell my littles that they are lucky to have me as their mother.

To be honest, the exact words are more along the lines of... with grades like yours, you are lucky you got me for a mother.

Not that I am not concerned with their grades.  Not that I do not encourage them to do well.  Not that I do not begin each and every day entreating them to be the best that they can be. 

It just seems to me as if there is some sort of disconnect between my hopes for my littles' and their own hopes for the future.

Which is entirely normal, I am finally, humbly, learning to accept.

What we want for our children is oftentimes what they want the least and the more I push them, the harder they push back.  For awhile, when they were small and I was bigger, they were mine.  But time has passed and now they are big and I am the small one.  Now they have voices.  Now they have opinions. 

And more often than not, I am finding those opinions to be profound.  And grounded.  Not in the expectations I have created for them, but in the freedom I have given them to make decisions on their own.

And as suddenly as that, the tables turned.  Instead of them learning from me, I find myself being the one that is listening, learning from the certain wisdom that only the young possess. 

I remain hopeful about their grades.  I am their mother, after all.  I remind them.  I encourage them.  I do what I know that I should.  That will never change.

But somewhere, deep down, I realize I've been mistaken. 

Deep down, I realize that it is actually me who is the lucky one.