So much to do, so little time

Ha! That about sums it up. I am posting early because I will not be up to the task tonight when we get back from the party and I will not have time in the morning, getting ready for the Life Learners to come over. I have fifteen minutes to tell you a story of our day before I must go get clean and do my nails and shave and get pretty.

I cleaned the house and set up the family room with tables for our project tomorrow (of which I will tell all tomorrow) and the girls watched movies and played computer games and helped me out a bit and played on their own .

But I wanted to tell one little moment. Every day, I ask A if she would like to get the mail for me. She usually says yes. Our neighborhood has a group mailbox, that happens to be across the street from us. Today, I went to find the key off my keychain, but she grabbed them from me and said, "I can do it!". We went to the front door and I let her out. She walks to the sidewalk, stops and looks both ways and back the first direction, then runs across the street. I stand in the open doorway watching. She takes the key and unlocks the little door, takes out the mail, closes the door back up again, and turns to face the street and home. Once again, she looks both ways and back the first direction. Then back to me she comes, bearing the day's load of catalogs, bills, junkmail and an occasional card or letter.

Some day soon, I will no longer need to watch her. Maybe that day is tomorrow, maybe I should have trusted her to do it alone sooner. Who has the answer to this question of when to let your child grow up? When I was her age I was getting on a school bus each day and navigating a school day on my own, running all over the countryside with the neighbor kids and my younger brothers. Not totally without incident, I might add. It was a different world back then. I feel pressure to shelter my child more than I know is good for her growing sense of independence. But how will she know how to function on her own unless she gets to function on her own? Nobody said this was gonna be easy.