Post overdue.

It was promised that I would write about the experience of letting Katie walk to the mailbox herself. She has since gone to the mailbox twice -- she takes quite awhile getting ready as though its her first school dance. She walks around as though in a matter of moments she's been given the authority to detonate a nuclear missile and the responsibility sends small waves of anxiety... hope... urgency... apprehension... timidness... confidence... weariness... all of which manifest themselves in one of many ways - flinging her hair back over her shoulder, rubbing her forehead, pacing, snacking without concern for weight gain, talking jibberish, talking to herself, talking to the Lord. Good graciousness.

She chooses the appropriate shoes. She opens the front door and then with masked-concern asks William one. more. time if he would like to go with her. William responds with 'no' as he stares into the abyss of the internet game he's playing - he will change his mind only moments before she steps foot onto the sidewalk at the end of the driveway... he will then scream with fear and surprise that 'he actually does want to go' at which I raise my eyebrows and motion him to hurry up, get his pickin' shoes on and 'RUN! SHE'S LEAVING YOU! RUN!' That's a joke - I would hate to clean up his poop-filled pants.

He tears out of the front door and I walk slowly down the long drive as they make the 100 yard trek to the mailbox at the front of the neighborhood. I see them the entire time against my 'better judgment'... I think it would be far better for them were I to let them go at it alone.

Just yesterday a friend ours was over with her 3 year old. Katie asked if she, William and Regan could go to the park and have a picnic by themselves. To this I looked at my friend, Jess, and shrugged my shoulders as if asking for her thoughts. She looked at me, 'really? truly? where is this said park?' (paraphrased) I explained the situation, 'down the drive, down the sidewalk, around the houses, through a trail, across some grass... lay down a blanket. Eat. Play. Come home.' It helped that the FINAL stretch brought them right back to eating their picnic on the adjacent lot to our house -- she stretched herself and her comfort zone and agreed. The kids, 5, 3 and 3 years old took off on their adventure. Lunches packed (no I will not go into the detail of the drama and thought that goes into THIS outing), layers of clothes in case of 'weather change', water bottles and toys. They ate their lunch in the sunshine feeling like Queens and Kings of another land eating on the plains of their heritage and basking in the glow of charmed lives. We Moms peaked on them every so often to make sure the bad men had not 'found out' and run off with them... or to make sure that the nearby marsh hadn't drown them with its temptations of frogs and ducks... nope, they were more child-like than ever with imaginations that stretched farther than the world they found themselves in.

Its refreshing and scary. Its nurtured in us that this is unsafe parenting yet I can't help but think we've fallen into foolishness and naivety when I think of the loss of imagination in our children and the reality of how little control we have in our lives. One moment I'm asking my child to 'not go beyond the second pear tree' in our driveway so that she will be 'safe' and the next moment we're speeding down the freeway and find ourselves tangled in metal and gasoline due to no fault of our own. Each of us finds our own 'comfort zone' when it comes to giving our kids responsibility -- I just hope its founded on wisdom as opposed to fear. Its seems we're getting better and better at not thinking for ourselves... and this is one symptom of that, I'm afraid.