2 Teenagers Now?

Today we will officially have 2 teenagers in our house.  We will have approximately 5 years and 4 months left before we will officially have an empty nest.  And yes, this year in particular, I find myself keeping track.  I have found myself reflecting on our kids in general since the beginning of the year.  WHY?  I have been asked what our secret to parenting is…and to put it in a book. 

But in reality it is simple.  We realized 2 things a long long time ago; 1.) We are very lucky to have children 2.) We only get them for 18 years of their life.  And because of these 2 things we made a promise to not take any moment for granted. 

I have debated for months on how much I wanted to explain regarding number one. It is not something that we have openly discussed for many reasons.  Long story short, Shawn was our last hope of having children.  We had losses before him, and had made a conscious decision that if we lost him too we were done trying.  We decided that we would NOT seek medical intervention to have a baby for reasons I will not go into here.  We decided we would either adopt or just not have kids. See we were also up against my intuition.  I always had this “feeling” that if we didn’t have kids by a certain age that they would just not happen.  I always knew somehow, that my biological clock was ticking away much faster than normal.  But anyway, we had a seamless pregnancy and had our beautiful son.  So we gave it another shot, but it did not go without many complications. At 26.5 weeks I went into preterm labor and the rest of the pregnancy was spent fighting to keep her in as long as possible. Fortunately we were lucky to make it to 38 weeks and a healthy beautiful baby girl was welcomed into our lives.  At that point we made the decision to be done.  Pregnancy was just too hard on my body and the worry, fear and emotional roller coaster that went along with them was enough for the both of us.  I was right about my biological clock too…not even a year after our daughter was born I quit ovulating, and that began my spiral of other issues that ultimately led to me having to have a hysterectomy at the age of 32.   But because of this we both quickly realized just how lucky and blessed we were to have our children.  We discussed it when they were born (and continue to discuss it today), and we both promised each other that we would not take them for granted. 

Which leads us to number 2-We also quickly realized that we, in theory, only get 18 years with them before they fly away from the nest.  18 years to prepare them for life as much as we could.  18 years to help them learn right from wrong.  18 years to experience as much as we could with them. 18 years to watch them experience the world through their eyes, but also to show them and teach them the beauty that the world has to offer. 18 years in theory is not a long time, considering it isn’t even a quarter of their lives.  We again, decided to not take the moments and years we had with them for granted.  We decided to make the most of the time we had with them.  We decided it was our job as their parents to lead them into adulthood and give them the tools they need to succeed.

These 2 reasons alone is why we sacrifice so much of ourselves and give 200% to parenting our children.

As we are entering this final phase (before adulthood) I find myself scared, excited, and nervous for what the future holds for them after they fly way.  With my oldest almost done with his first year of high school I have found that I haven’t quite grasped the reality of it yet.  But what I do see is him making decisions about his future, and creating goals for himself beyond what most kids his age even think about yet.  I see him beginning to use the tools that we have given him, and it is very exciting. 

Today his sister is joining him in the realm of teen years.  And she has had some minor struggles this past year in determining who she is and where she is going.  It hasn’t been as seamless of a transition for her into this phase as it was for him.  But none the less I know she will do fine.  She has more drive and motivation than most people I know.  She is most certainly going to know what she will want out of her life and shoot for it.  As long as we can all make it through the moody hormones that she needs to figure out how to get through, I think we will come out on the other end a shining star! 

None the less we have/will embrace this phase with the same dedication and drive we have their entire lives.  I remember when they were first born, I would sit and wonder and dream about what kind of people they would become. It seemed so far away, but yet we are almost there and the years are undoubtedly flying by.  And I already know that I will be a terrible empty nester.