Next Steps

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I am continuously amazed at the amount of change that can occur in one year. I guess because the past two years were pretty packed with adding to our family I just assumed that by not having children we would finally have a tiny taste of stagnation.

Silly me.

I now realize that it is perhaps not the addition of offspring that keeps life hopping but rather the continuous life events in our age bracket. After all… we are still in our 20s. It seems that we are fully immersed in the world of weddings, babies, friends moving, bunches of showers, etc… and loving every minute of it for that matter. It is fun to celebrate the next milestone--- especially if it is for someone that you love so much.

Kid world is a land that we really don’t venture to that often…which I now realize is quickly approaching as Molly starts Pre-K this August…(gulp) So many of my friends are either just starting out as parents or right on the edge of kid world…like us. Kid world is a whole different kind of busy. Baseball practice, boy scouts, ballet, school nights, making lunches in advance, no nap time and much later bedtimes all live in kid world. I still can’t quite grasp how life can really exist without nap time? Kid world sure looks exciting but MAN ---I feel a little tired just thinking about it. Kid world is full of discovery and stacked with celebrations. Like tonight…

Tonight was my niece, Makenzie’s kindergarten graduation. Can I please just tell you how much I love this celebration? I mean what is not to love about a bunch of small toothless children with giant personalities and graduation caps? What a great way to further support a love of learning and success at such a key age!

This is what that level of happiness looks like…


This has been a big graduation year for our family (big and small). Unfortunately, we have not been able to attend all graduations but are SO proud of the huge accomplishments of those we love taking their “next step”.

I stop and wonder how many other grown-ups would have experienced heightened success in their ‘next steps’ had they been given such a supportive and strong start? Perhaps this is my new favorite discovery of parenthood. It really feels wonderful to go through each of my milestones with success but this is nothing compared to the joy of celebrating my children through each of their new accomplishments. How amazing is it that part of my role as a mom is to celebrate my kids? Talk about hitting the “mother” load of celebrations… so while my next step is moving forward it is nice that forward includes the return to the excitement of toddler milestones… can’t wait to see what joys kid world will bring too. Tonight was an exciting preview. At this rate it will be here in no time.