We did fairly well with keeping the boys away until DD went to college at the age of 16. It was going fairly well until she volunteered to tutor a guy that was twice her age who was still having a lot of trouble with reading and writing. She thought she could fix him
I wish she would have listened to me. He did wait until she was 18 to make his big move on her.
She was going to be a civil engineer. He is still swapping things and fixing cars to survive. I had so much fun with her as a teenager. I should have known that it couldn't last. Finally the DD is settling down. She has been married now for almost 2 years, and finally graduated from the UofW. There were times I didn't think it would ever happen. There are still moments that she scares me with her behavior, so I still have to to pray that she will hold it together.
And then there is "The Boy". He became close friends with a gal that is 5 years older than he is. They started talking on the phone when he was just barely 16. There were a few phone bills I wasn't sure he was going survive. By the time he was 17 they were sleeping with the phones to their ears. I only stayed sane with all this because she lived in Vancouver WA, and we are 153 miles north of there. They got married about 6 months after he turned 18. I have to say that 4.5 years later, that The Boy is still deeply in love with his wife. He has impressed a lot of people with how well he has handle the fact that his wife has a very aggressive progressive form of MS. They didn't know it when they got married, but I have seen that they are much stronger than I would have thought. I love them both, and I am very proud of them.
I have learned that you just don't know what the future holds. That as a parent you are only allowed such a short time to prepare your children for adulthood. The best you can do is give your kids all the tools that you can, and hope for the best. I look back, and 18 years is so little time to teach them everything that they need to know.
It is a lot of fun to have the house to myself and not have to worry about cooking dinner for the the kids. Oh and the kids bedrooms made a great sewing room and office.
