Photo Challenge - Day 4: the sky

This one is in two parts, two photos, a little tweak on the rules.  The photos of the sky bookends my day.

I started out early in the morning, taking my oldest daughter on a high school visit.  I can hardly believe that we're already considering high schools!  Not only the "where did all the years go" part of parenting, but I also feel like now that she's in middle school, we're in the countdown to when she will leave us.  And then after her, everyone else will begin their departures.  And not in a good way.  At this point, I can't imagine what my home will be like when my children slowly start to fly away from the nest.  And I panic, wondering if I will have have prepared them well for that big, real world out there.  Will they know how to manage their money and get a mortgage?  Will the girls know how to do their hair and apply their make-up?  Will they be good drivers and remember to go vote?  Will they floss and brush their straightened-by-braces teeth?  There's so much you have to know as an adult.  I'm not sure if we can get it all in.

At the end of the day, we were in D.C.  My second daughter is in a music performance at the National Cathedral, tonight was the final, on-site rehearsal.  Getting my kids to their various practices and activities is a logistical puzzle and there are days when I really wonder, "what the heck am I thinking?"  Then the final event comes, whatever it may be - a sports event, or for her, always a stage performance.  I watch her stand in front of hundreds of people and sing, or dance, or, her favorite, walk down the runway, and I am in absolute amazement.  She is so confident and secure in her talents, and it just amazes me every time I see her perform, how in this way, she is so different from me.

In general, they are all confident little people, already believing that they can do whatever they want to do - be a fashion designer, a movie producer, an Olympic athlete.  And I feel better, just for a little while, thinking that when it is time for them to leave the nest, they will be ready to soar.