Why I am back to Blogging

Brynley and Madi watch over their sleeping cousin while John loves on his new little nephew

I started blogging to give our kids some understanding of what it was like for us to be in Vietnam bringing our daughter Lucy home while they were in Salt Lake waiting for us to get back and be a family. Once I was home, blogging was a way for me to share my feelings about being the mom of a brood of kids in a world that doesn't believe in broods much any more. Blogging was my voice to tell the world that having a family is a good thing; and that choosing to stay home to raise that family is noble, hard, happy work.

And then my two older daughters began to grow up.

And then this blog became something very different.

When you are the mom of young girls, those girls want to pattern their life after you. They  want to help you. They are little minnie versions of you with this underlying beautifulness that is all their own. Then the cacoon of childhood bursts, and a little girl becomes a teenager. And the wheels come off for the mother because all of a sudden her darling little right hand helper doesn't want to be so helpful any more. She wants to become herself. And in order to do that she has to shake of (or rip off or tear to bits and pieces or shred with her fingernails) the apron strings she so gladly had wrapped around her and she wants to stretch out those brand new wings and FLY.

And fly she does. She goes in several directions. She tries new things or gets really good at things she has been doing all along - and you see her less and less and her friends mean more and more and the girl who used to help you cook in the kitchen now becomes the teen who rolls her eyes when you ask her to help in any form. She becomes a very good person, but not a person who wants to watch and learn and observe and grow from the mom who she once adored. Learning from mom becomes torture, it becomes bondage, it becomes suffering and antiquity. 

And yet, there are still lessons that only a mom can teach. It was patterned that way before time began. Moms have a sacred duty to rear their children and to nurture them. We can't give that up or abandon it even though our society (and our teenagers) feel that there is enough information on the super highways of life and enough life lessons in the halls of the high school that moms can take a back seat to their daughter's learning and growth after those girls have been outfitted with bras and high school ID cards.

So quite a while back this blog became a letter to my daughters. And not just to them now, in their teenage glory. But hopefully it will be something they look back on when they are moms themselves. When their own daughters and bursting to fly I hope my girls can flip through these posts and see that they are going to be alright, that mom made it through and even did a few things that might be helpful to them in their plight, and my little experience will become a blessing to them in times to come.

And hopefully a blessing to them now.

So , in the posts of this blog that has always been about being a mother, you will begin to see some thoughts and feelings that are tenderly specific to this time in life when my mothering is about guiding fledgling adults instead of leading  little children. This mothering of the teens has been a bit messy for me. My mistakes are big and my confidence is small. But in the writing and posting and loving of these girls I hope the intent to be a mother who can look her maker in the eye and say she did her very best and left nothing undone to help her children grow closer to Him there will be value in what is left here for my girls - and you, if you like, - to read.