It's Official

It is with enormous pleasure and pride that I post today's news.

As of Sunday, my son is officially graduated from high school!

There were times I thought we'd never get to this momentous event, that I was birthing my son all over again but this time it was years instead of mere hours. There have been years of agony, pain, and sorrow - years of anger and hurt. But now we look back on it all and realize that the good AND bad years have contributed to where he is today.

And that place is an awesome place.

Instead of surviving, he's at that place where he is truly looking forward to the future and making plans for what it holds. Even though transition is somewhat scary, he's been ready to get past high school for some time now and move into college and career considerations.

That's so cool! My son, actually looking forward to college - who'd have thunk it?

This morning I made the request for his high school transcripts to be forwarded to his college of choice. Tomorrow we'll be going to get his classes for fall tentatively scheduled and scholarship info finalized.

The interesting thing about all of this, I'm not feeling nostalgic or sad. Sunday I never once cried because I was so happy for my son and his accomplishments (I did enough of that preparing his DVD life montage). Well, and perhaps I was also trying to take care of everything under the sun too, but that's beside the point. How could I cry when my son was obviously so thrilled?

So on this eve of Memorial Day weekend there is much to be thankful for.

I'll include my son in that.

My Girl and Me

My mom sent me more pictures from this past summer. Here's one of my little great-niece and me in my sister's pool over Memorial Day weekend.

That weekend we had my grandma, my mom, my sister, my sister's daughter, and then my sister's granddaughter. Five generations were under one roof at the same time. Pretty amazing to think about.

Little Madison's initial reaction to the water reminded me a bit of when my son was little. When she first got in the water it was probably a little overwhelming (and cold!). She screamed and cried and clung to me, just like my son did at that age. Then I gradually let her get used to the water by splashing around a little bit, letting her splash at the water with her feet, and then finally just inching my way down into the water with her.

By that time, she was having so much fun splashing that she didn't realize she was all the way in the cold, big swimming pool. It was a completely adorable moment, and I was so glad to get to share that with her.

Haven't seen the cutie since Memorial Day weekend. I'm expecting to see my niece and great-niece over Labor Day weekend. She will probably have grown so much by then.

Little children do that, you know.