Phoebe Kate

Now that my children are mostly grown, I’ve made an interesting discovery.  I really do love them.

Don’t get me wrong.  Of course I loved them when they were babies and little kids and bigger kids.  I can say with reasonable certainty that I must have loved them when they were in the Terrible Two’s and the Terrible Teens because they are still alive and I didn’t end up in the psych ward or the state pen.  The feeling of love during all those formative years of theirs, however, was very much overshadowed by a powerful sense of duty, of responsibility like a 24/7/365 toothache that lasted for two-plus decades.  It’s no joke that mothers have eyes in the backs of their heads and extra-sensory powers — they need them.              

Now that they are self-maintaining and self-governing, I finally have the luxury of being conscious of my love for my three children.  I can wallow shamelessly in the warm fuzzies and marvel at what interesting people popped out of the likes of me.

–phoebe kate