My kids lived in a busy household, they were given tools to achieve anything they wanted, I pushed, I pulled, I screamed and I cried.  Not to force them to do anything, but to ensure that they never gave up. We had a plan to introduce the kids to anything they showed an interest in; Josh chose writing and singing, anything intellectual, he was involved; Kayla was the athlete, she tried all sports, swimming, basketball, softball, but mostly soccer – for thirteen years I was a soccer mom nine months out of the year; Haley was the performer, the helper, she was a Girl Scout for ten years, then moved on to performance arts of all kinds, I gave up my title as soccer mom for theater mom.  Because the kids are almost ten years apart from top to bottom, this wasn’t a difficult task.

At times, being active was exhausting for them, other times it was overwhelming, moving from task to task.  Whenever it got that way, we stopped and took a breath, reminded ourselves of why we were pursuing that path.  Was it a college scholarship we were eying?  Fun with our friends? An award we hoped for?  Every time it was different, because each of my children are unique.  Sometimes we had to get ourselves geared up, in the mood, in the right frame of mind…when we did, we reverted to the same song each time.

One of my favorite memories is a swim meet in Idaho Falls, it was a trying time for us, we were all stressed about something, though no one will remember what now.  All the kids were competing that day and Kayla was up next, she could be a crabby little thing at age 11.  She had snarked at me one too many times and I told her to get her Ipod – it was probably a nano or even a disc player at that time.  She looked at me defiantly and put in her earphones.  A change came over her instantly, she didn’t speak to me again before she swam, she just listened to her song on repeat and then stepped up on the blocks.  In my mind, she won that day, what color ribbon she actually took home doesn’t matter anymore, she put herself where she needed to be for that moment.  She remembered, she had something to do “Right Now, there’s no tomorrow.”

Not much has really changed, my kids are all adults now, they make their own choices and live with them.  They each have excelled in different ways in this thing we call life.  If there are three ends of a spectrum, my kids are on each of them, and I couldn’t be more proud.  Each day they take care of themselves and the people around them, they seek opportunities and never stop growing.  I hope as they go forward they learn from their childhoods to present my grandchildren with lots of opportunities to play and to grow.

Today’s Assignment: publish a post for your dream reader, and include a new-to-you element in it.

My dream readers are my kids, I hope to be able to share with them a little insight in to their mom, a little of what makes me tick, a little of our history as they move forward in adulthood.  Each story is designed with them in mind – I love you all.