Fledgling's Flight

A long time ago I learned that with having children, one must choose one's battles, or go BSC (bat-shit crazy).

One of those battles were bedrooms. After beating myself about the head for years over the constant state of mess that were my girls' bedrooms, I gave up. I finally settled on, "as long as your rooms don't puke up their contents into the rest of the house, how you choose your bedrooms to look like is none of my business."

Okay, so I won't win any "Homemaker Of The Year" contests. And chances are, neither will my girls when they go off on their own. Luckily, I didn't name my girls, "Suzie" and "Betty".

Right now, my eldest daughter's room is finally puking up it's contents into my living room, but it's all contained in moving boxes and plastic totes. By this time next month, she and her groom will be putting down roots in another state, and I will be upstairs, running a vacuum cleaner in the empty space that used to be her room, thinking about that other vacuum nature abhors.

I remember my second Mother's Day as a Mom. A mother robin had built a nest in a basket of fuchsias that were hanging from my patio canopy. My daughter and I (my daughter's name is shared with said bird ) were leaning over the back of the couch, watching the robin tending to her young. The fledgling robins were just on the verge of making their first test flights, like little feathered Wright Brothers. There were two fledglings, and I even named them "Wilbur and Orville". I thought to myself that one day in the future, my little robin would be balancing on the edge of the nest, flapping her wings, gaining the courage. Taking flight.

And I swear, that happened last week, not nineteen years ago.