Letting Go

When your children are babies, your primary job as parents is to keep them happy, healthy, and safe.

As they start to grow, you need to begin teaching them things...how to walk, talk, feed themselves.

Once they have mastered those skills, it is time to delve a little deeper into their education.  Letters, numbers, colors, shapes.  We are our children's first teachers.

Before you know it though, there comes a new stage in your relationship with your child.  One that comes much much sooner than expected.  The one of "letting go".

Try as we might, we cannot keep our children in the protective bubble of our arms and homes forever.  They need to learn to grow their wings and assert their independence a little.  They need to test the waters and try some things on their own.

Let me tell you.  This stage is one of the more scary ones I have experienced so far as a mom.  It goes against all my instincts to let Emmy start to venture off on her own.  Now obviously we're not talking about walking to the store by herself, but these beginning moments of freedom are still very nerve wracking.

Sunday was a big day of independence for Emmy.  In the morning, she and I headed off to church.  One of the masses is known as "the children's mass" and so we made sure to go to that one.  {Quick side-note for anyone not Catholic.  We don't have any day care centers or Sunday school classes during our masses.  If you have children, you just have to bring them with you into the service.  Most churches do have a children's mass where the children are called up to the alter before the readings, and they head downstairs to the basement or crying room for a portion of the mass to listen to the readings at their own level.}  Skip has taken Emmy to this mass a few times before.  He has pretty much always gone with her into the room with the kids to keep an eye on her though.  But after a lot of discussion from him and I, we decided that this week I would let her go all by herself.

When the time came for the children to head up, Emmy got up and walked right up to the alter with such purpose.  She was one of the smaller kids heading up there, but she definitely made up in confidence what she lacked in height.  Without even a glance back in my direction she filed right out of the church and into the little crying room area in the back with the rest of the kids and the teacher.  I then spent the next 20 minutes panicking that something was going to happen to her in there.  I did get up once to peak in, but other than that she was on her own.  She was super happy when she came out, and very proud of herself.

Later that afternoon, she was able to assert a little more independence when we were at the park.  Skip was working, and I brought the girls there to meet up with my baby sis and her husband.  After spending some time with them and their puppies, the girls and I headed to the playground area.  I've attempted to take the girls to the park by myself before, but it normally ends in near-disaster.  Charlie is still at the tough age where she simply takes off running, and throws tantrums when she doesn't get her way.  So our past solo park trips normally end with Emmy not getting to do anything she wants to, and me being kicked in the shins by a screaming toddler.

This time I was comfident it would be different.  I prepped Emmy when we got there.  I told her most of my attention would have to be focused on Charlie, and she would be on her own a bit.  I gave her boundaries of where she could go, and reminded her to always be able to see me.  {now before I sound too crazy and overbearing.  We live in one of the most densely populated areas in the country.  Everywhere you go, there are tons of people and tons of cars.  There's also been a string of attempted lurings, and so everyone is a little more on edge.  Nice, country, don't lock our doors living is definitely not what happens around here}

Well you know what, Emmy {and I} did great!  While I was chasing Charlie around, Emmy was happily getting to do her own thing.  It's not a huge park, so she was never really that far from me.  But she was so happy and proud to be off playing a bit on her own.

As I typed out this post, I realize how silly these little pieces of independence are.  But for me, for Emmy, they were the first step in her starting to spread her wings.  There is that famous quote about when you have children, you are letting your heart go walking around outside your body.  Well, as important as it is, it is hard to have that heart begin to travel a touch farther away every day.