As you may have noticed, everything I write about has something to do with my lifelong ambition of raising my four minions, otherwise known as children.  I have been thinking a lot about how quickly time passes (this picture was taken 8 years ago now!) and the different phases of parenthood that we experience.  The pregnancy phase, the new mommy phase, the potty training phase, the elementary school phase, etc.  I have decided that the current phase of motherhood that I am living is called the “transition” phase–that time when parents come to the realization that they are in fact going to have to share their children with the rest of the world.  Of all the advice I received when I first became a parent, no one warned me about this bittersweet phase.  I didn’t know how much pride I would feel as they grew up and became “real people”.  Nor did I understand the sadness that would envelop me during the process.  I am still deep in the trenches of everyday homework, worries and late nights, and I am getting tired after 21 years of being a mom.  But, I also know that I am going to miss this “transition” phase someday (maybe not every single minute), but most of it. I hope that in the end it turns out like the transition stage of labor:  extremely intense and painful, but in the end, worth every contraction.