Sometimes it's the little things that help you course-correct in your life.  A letter in the mail, a friend's gentle reminder, or in my case - a birdhouse and a piece of jewelry.

My mom called yesterday morning to see if she and my dad could come up to the house and bring my son his Valentine's Day gift.  It was a quick phone call (I'm busy, after all) and within a minute we'd confirmed the time that they'd be arriving.  Later on, and moments after I met my son at the bus stop, my parents arrived with a balloon, a card, and a box of SweetHearts in hand.  After a lot of hugging, my son opened his gift, ate a few candy hearts and punched away at the balloon (not its intended use). Then, to my surprise, my parents pulled out two additional gifts - both of them for me.  Last I knew, we didn't exchange Valentine's Day gifts. Did I miss something? Two gifts, really?

My dad had handmade a little birdhouse for our deck.  Apparently, he and my son made it together on a recent overnight visit as a 'special project'.  My dad had taken care to place a little wire netting above the birdhouse floor to keep the bird's home clean and comfortable.  He thought I'd like it, and I do; very much in fact.

My mom's gift to me was a little jewelry box wrapped in a red ribbon. "I thought you'd like to have this", she said.  I opened it up and lifted a beautiful rhinestone choker from the box.  It was a piece from my grandmother's collection of costume jewelry (nice stuff, actually).  She had impeccable taste, but not much of a budget.  I also have her beautiful 3/4 sleeve faux fur with mink collar, which tells me that she made the most of her limited resources!  It's really too bad that she died when I was just five years old, since both my mother and I agree that we would have gotten along famously.  This gift really meant a lot to me.

These small acts of kindness from my parents made me realize that my parents are still mine and although they act a whole lot more like grandparents these days (giving my child gummy worms and doing WHATEVER he wants, whenever he wants), I'm pretty lucky to have two living parents that I see on a regular basis.  I'd honestly gotten so used to them being Grandma and Papa, that I'd pretty much stepped out of the parent/daughter relationship all together without truly realizing it.

This year my parents will both turn 70, so it feels pretty important to savor these moments and appreciate them in a way that matters.  Because they do matter.

People keep asking me if I'm going to miss my kids when they leave to spend most of July with relatives in Kansas. Well, yes, I'm sure my husband and I will have moments when it will seem way too quiet in the house.

Let's be honest, though. If you knew your children were going to be well cared for and having a blast, and you had made plans to take some fun "couple" outings in their absence — for the first time in nearly 11 years — would you be focusing on how much you were going to miss them?

For all the joy our children bring us — the excitement of watching my son reel in his first rock bass or my daughter perfecting the art of hula-hooping — every day brings a new challenge with them, too. Teaching, caring for, disciplining, etc., etc. — parenting is exhausting. So, in the interest of spreading that joy they bring us, why wouldn't we give Grandma and Grandpa (and aunts, uncles and cousins) an opportunity to spend some time with those lovely children of ours?

When my husband and I are sitting quietly on the back deck overlooking Keuka Lake during our mini-vacation in a few weeks, we'll probably be nearly in tears, missing the two of them arguing over who gets to sit where or how dumb the other one is.

It's getting difficult for me to not turn this post into complete saracsm.

But seriously, there's a little mix of feeling giddy and anxious about their departure this coming weekend. We're meeting my brother-in-law at the halfway point close to the border of Ohio and Indiana Saturday night and then going our separate ways Sunday morning. I'll probably cry a little.

An hour later, though, as the two of us drive toward kidless freedom
for the next few weeks, I think I'll get over it.