My Little People

Many of you may have noticed that lately I've been doing a lot more blogging about things like cocktails and red carpet fashion and pop culture and a lot less about motherhood. There's a reason for that: My little people have been turning into...well, people.

I've always tried to be sensitive about publishing anything that might be embarrassing to either of them later in life. I'm careful not to mock them, even as I'm laughing at their antics. I make a conscious effort to speak respectfully of them, no matter their age. But I'm reaching the point - or rather, they're reaching the point - where discussion of them is more about them than it is about me, because they have each become their own person. It's become much more difficult to write about myself in relation to them because it's as much writing about them as it is about me.

As a mom, it's a bittersweet moment when your kids become their own people. On one hand, that's kind of the point of parenting: to raise your children to become independent and self-sufficient and to not need you any more. But on the other hand, it's painful to realize that they don't, in fact, need you any more.

Now, at only ages 5 and 7, it's not really true that they don't need me any more. Of course they need me to feed them, and buy them clothes, and help them with their homework, and drive them to dance class and gymnastics and wherever else they need to go. But they don't need me for a lot of things that they used to, like tying their shoes, brushing their teeth, picking out their clothes, helping them make friends. Bit by bit, they are becoming independent. The list of things that they need me for is becoming shorter and shorter. Which is a little bit sad. But the list of things they can do entirely on their own is becoming longer and longer, and that's really exciting!

So please forgive me if I don't talk about my children in this blog as much as I used to. But hopefully it won't be long until they're writing about themselves in blogs of their own!