We are starting to see what life is going to be over the next few years.  It’s a lot more time at home with the younger two and less time at home with the older two.

The big kids are busy.  There are Saturday’s when one or both of them have activities outside of the house.   This weekend was such a weekend.  The Firstborn went to Planet Comic-con with friends.  Gone all day long and busy having a good time.  I got a few texts but knew everything was fine.  The Freshman had a youth group service project and movie night with our church youth group.  He was gone all day serving a member or our congregation and then hanging with the youth group playing games and watching the Case for Christ.  He gave his phone to the Firstborn since hers is on the fritz and so I didn’t see or hear from him all day.

The hubby and I used to look forward to these days…that’s before we had the younger two.  We thought that we would have time for just us and would be young empty nesters enjoying the next phase of life…and then God said we needed the younger two boys.  So now we have the second family as it were…busy day’s full of diapers, toys, snacks, meals, etc, etc, etc…

It’s weird parenting two different family groups as it were…we have the “bigs” and the “littles”.  The littles get dragged all over creation and spend a lot of time in cars picking kids up, dropping kids off and attending big kids activities.   The big kids are growing into adults and working on juggling money, finding time in schedules for things they want to do and trying to keep grades up and balance fun and school.  We’re also training them to be adults…so there are added responsibilities like mowing lawns, doing their own laundry, watching their brothers and harder household chores.  Plus there is the added challenge of working our schedules around childcare and bedtimes…as the older kids have more evening events and we have a toddler who goes to bed early!

However, when the big kids are busy I realize just how lucky I am to have them.  They really are helpful and do a lot of little things like let me go to the bathroom in peace and get dinner started without someone screaming at me….so as college looms and High School continues I’m going to have to adapt and change as the big kids move on to the next parts of their lives and we continue to help the little kids grow into big kids…if we didn’t totally mess up the first two there is hope for the second two!

Change is inevitable and we have to embrace all the different ages and stages…I could cry, scream and throw fits but it won’t make a difference…instead I’m learning to hone my parenting skills, embrace the chaos and hope that I’m not screwing everything and everyone up as I do life.