April 21, 2026 - The Shift

Time has a strange way of moving… racing past the moments we want to hold onto, and at a turtle pace during the times we wish away. There is this quiet shift happening in our home right now and it definitely comes with some mixed emotions.

With one daughter now married and living hours from home. The other… my baby… and a senior… my baby, how can this be? Whoa… that means just a few weeks left of being high school parents… and suddenly everything feels like it has a timestamp on it. The “lasts” are everywhere… last first day already behind us, last high school games, Senior Nights, last time I’ll hear backpacks hit the floor after a long school day. Moments that used to feel routine now feel… do I dare say, special?

As I get older, I catch myself watching more closely, listening longer, holding onto conversations, going in just one more time to say good night… it’s a hard place to sit. Because I know what’s coming, even if I’m not quite ready to say it out loud, this is what we work as parents for. This season is a strange mix of exploding pride and bittersweet heartache.

I’m so incredibly proud of each of our girls and the ladies they’ve become. Alivia, the firstborn… leading the way. Then, Maci, our second child… the one that has always had a way of doing things her way. Both girls strong, capable, ready to step into their own life. But there’s this quiet, a shift… a kind of grief that sits alongside this proud momma’s feelings. The kind only a mom really understands… The kind that shows up in the middle of the night with a thousand “did I do enough?” thoughts. The kind that wonders how the years moved so fast. How do I have two grown adult daughters already?

Being an almost empty nester isn’t loud. It’s subtle. It’s walking past a bedroom and realizing it will soon stay clean longer than it ever has… always longing for a clean house, now the thought of it staying messy isn’t quite so bad. It’s fewer shoes by the door. Fewer voices in the kitchen. It’s knowing the house will still be full of love… just a little quieter… so much quieter.

And yet, I wouldn’t trade a single moment of this journey. This has been the best decision I have ever made - That Louis and I have ever made together. Now the financial advisor that told Louis and I we were “dumb” for rolling our retirement funds out and cashing them in to pay for infertility treatments didn’t think so, but who the hell cares what that guy thinks… We got our girls!

I have loved every minute of being their mom. The chaos, the noise, the car rides, the laughter, even the hard days… the hard seasons. And I’ve loved opening our home…not just to our girls, but to the revolving door of friends who somehow became “mine” too… and their parents. That houseful of classmates, the extra plates at the table, the laughter echoing through the house… those were never interruptions. They were the good stuff. They still are.

So now, I’m trying to do this differently. Not rushing past these weeks, but leaning into them. Soaking up the lasts and letting myself feel all of the joy, the memories being made, even the ache… because it all matters.

Because this isn’t just an ending.

It’s the closing of one of the most beautiful chapters of my life… and the beginning of watching our daughters continue to write their own.

And me… I’ll be right here… forever grateful I get to be their momma!