I'm almost afraid to write this...aftraid I will jinx it if I put my relief into written words. Tony got the job at the zoo. I still can't believe it. It's been a little more than 48 hours since he was called and offered the job. 48 hours of relief. 2 nights of peaceful sleep. (Well, really only one night of peaceful sleep since Friday night I had to pick Brandon up from work at 2 am!)

I'm having a hard time believing it's really real. I don't know if I will until the first day he goes to work there.

I can't even write anything else about it right now. So I'm not even going to try. Maybe another day.

Switching topics...Brandon's high school graduation was yesterday. What a wonderful day, but I really didn't think I'd be as emotional as I was. Honestly, after what a struggle it's always been for us with him and school...until yesterday, I had just been feeling relief, profound relief, that he finished high school and was graduating. Mom and I were even talking about that very thing as we were in the Family Arena waiting for it all to start. I told her how so many people I knew with kids graduating were having a hard time dealing with it, but *I* wasn't. I may have even sounded a bit proud about not having a hard time dealing with him graduating.

No sooner were the words out of my mouth when Pomp and Circumstance began. And so did the tears.

Pomp and Circumstance played for a long time. (It takes a long time for over 400 kids to file in.) And it is not easy to hide tears from your very unemotional husband who is sitting on one side of you and your mother who is sitting on the other side, who just listened to you telling her that you weren't having a hard time at all with your child graduating. LOL I sat there wondering if anyone would think it was strange if I put on sunglasses. And wishing Brandon's graduation was on the football field as mine had been so no one would think I was odd for putting on sunglasses.

This mom who was not emotional about high school graduation sat there remembering his first day of kindergarten so very vividly...I even remember what he was wearing on his first day of kindergarten...I kept thinking about how fast time passes. One second, he's a screaming newborn, making me a mom for the first time, the next, he's holding and cuddling his newborn baby brother, the next, he's going off to kindergarten, then middle school, then high school....time sped by faster than I wanted it to.

Now, he's an adult. He's 18. He has a job. He's out of high school. He wants to join the National Guard. How did that all happen, seemingly overnight? He's maturing and becoming more independent. And isn't that the goal of parenthood? Raising a tiny, helpless newborn who squeezes your finger when you place it in the palm of his hand as if he's hanging on for dear life and gazes into your eyes with such love into a man who can think for himself and make his own decisions? That's the goal, isn't it?

Why does reaching your goal as a parent have to be not only the most rewarding but the most difficult milestone to reach?