mood: busy | drinking: water
The Mama & Papa Witmer were just in California for a visit. (They’re pretty adorable, no?)
I always look forward to the parental visits. Having moved so far away from the place where I grew up, I don’t often find myself reminded of my childhood.
But seeing my parents always brings back a flood of memories, and we usually end up around the table swapping stories that start with, “Remember that time…”
I have no doubt that becoming a parent myself will alter my view of my own mom and dad. For the first time, I’ll be standing in their shoes, forced to make some of the same decisions they had to wrestle with when my sister and I were tiny.
Boy and I have already started talking about how to let Bean be whoever she (or he) will be. How to let her (let’s just go with her for now) grow up to be confident in who she is, even if that “who” isn’t quite what we expected.
I’m sure when I was a little two-year-old tow head running around pulling puppy dog tails, my parents didn’t expect that one day I would change my hair color a ridiculous number of times, date a boy in a band, stop going to church, get tattoos and buy a motorcycle. (Not necessarily all at the same time, of course.)
I’m sure, when they tucked me in at night, they had very different ideas of who I would become.
But they have let me grow up with grace. They let me make decisions they didn’t understand. They let me disagree. They let me go.
It couldn’t have been very easy for them.
But the freedom they gave me has made me a better me. And I think it’s one of the many reasons I actually get excited when my parents are coming to town, while many of my friends live in dread of that day.
If we start now, and we practice really hard, I hope that Boy and I can give Bean the same freedom and let her fly.
-Lo, who somehow also grew up to be taller than both her parents.
LaDonnaWitmer 