My little man

Wide awake this morning - 6:00 a.m., July 4th, no good reason to have opened my eyes, but instead here I sit feeling more awake than most mornings when I need to be out of bed early. I gave up on going back to sleep and now sit on my covered back porch - listening. The sound of the rain, which people are expecting to wreak such havoc today with flood conditions that most Atlanta fireworks have been cancelled, the drops sound so delicate as they bounce off the roof and leaves around me. Hard to imagine the problems this delicate dance can cause. There is a sweet sound of birds singing in the distance, and while I feel it's to early to be up and moving, clearly nature knows this day is already well underfoot.

Waking this morning, besides the startling discovery of the early time, was what seems to be a more routine discovery as of late of the sleeping 10-year old beside me. Sounds in the night, especially wind and rain, are cause for alarm for her - or more likely cause to have a Mom-worthy excuse to need the safety of her parents room. So, as I have every morning this week I also woke to a most precious angel - who is now almost the height of me, mind you - cuddling up for comfort. She, of course, is still sleeping peacefully through the rain which caused her waking earlier in the evening. Although as is her pattern she too will wake soon before it seems to make sense because she has a wonderful gift of being a morning person very much unlike me.

In the stillness of this morning I also remember who is not under my roof, my little man, Charlie. He is off for fun and adventure at the lake with his cousin. While I'm sure he will have a fantastic time, returning home with more stories than you can possibly imagine which he will be so excited to share in painstaking detail, I miss him. It's a moment that makes me reflect on the not-so-distant future where my children will have things they chose to do that do not involve them spending time with their Mom and Dad, so weird. This is a next step that I'm not ready for yet, or at least have not begun to let myself even think about, and today has made me realize it is time to start adjusting my thinking.

As I think about what I am writing I sound like a crazy woman - sitting here in this serene moment, writing on my back porch at an unusually early time in the morning (for her), and choosing to fret about my 13-year old son not being with her for the day. Yep, sounds completely logical to me. It is not that he chooses to do something else it is that it is a symbolic representation of what is to come. Today is Independence Day, the 4th of July, when we should be together as a family - eating hot dogs, swimming at the pool (or better today with the rain - complaining that we aren't swimming), trying to catch a glimpse of a firework somewhere, me afraid that a child will burn down the house with a sparkler - and instead we're not. Weird, and a little sad for me.

So, I will go back to listening to the sound of the rain as it falls gently on the awning above me, to the birds as they tweet a delicate melody no one will ever do justice to replicate, be thankful that my over five feet tall 10-year old would give anything to cuddle with me each night, and remember when my little man really was little and I would get up at this time of the morning because he needed me to, and that was all the reason I needed.

Happy 4th of July y'all, and Happy (Start of) Independence to my little man.