"Waving Good-Bye" by Gerald Stern

Yes, this is baby Darlene, born on the East Coast of the USA and happy to have a big mouth!
And here I am again, showing you that I can both stand AND have a big mouth!
Here I am, having finally closed my mouth, so you could see that, indeed, I also have a big head. By the way, little sister, these genes run through your blood too. So, considering you, me and Carsten all rolled into one....we're talking about the potential for this child to have big eyes, a big head, big mouth, be extremely tall and have huge feet and hands! Sounds rather alien to me? But seriously...anything you produce will be just beautiful :)
Here I am right out of High School, thinking I new everything and had nothing to fear. (And the mouth?...Still big!)

Now, on with Mr. Sterns Poem:

I wanted to know what it was like before we

had voices and before we had bare fingers and before we

had minds to move us through our actions

and tears to help us over our feelings,

so I drove my daughter through the snow to meet her friend

and filled her car with suitcases and hugged her

as an animal would, pressing my forehead against her

walking in circles, moaning, touching her cheek,

and turned my head after them as an animal would,

watching helplessly as they drove over the ruts,

her smiling face and her small hand just visible

over the giant pillows and coat hangers

as they made their turn into the empty highway.

So, I had an epiphany today, analyzing my recent feelings of emotionally feeling like a child and wondering where this was all coming from. This month we officially moved our daughter to her own home and are no longer financially supporting her. In other words, she is completely 100%on her own. She was the last to go, all apron strings are cut and my big nest is 2100 square feet of empty. Now it's time to redefine my life and this is a moment that I have been anticipating for years. We mom's pour our lives into motherhood (loving all it entails), but are told by many that 'our' time will come. So, for me, during every difficult stage of raising my children, I thought about this moment, each time, feeling like it was so very far away and suddenly it's staring me in the face. I have a lot to think about, because I'm not a baby anymore and I'm not a full-time mom either. It's time to grow up into this new stage.