This is sort of a wierd beginning to what should be a wild weekend. I have been a stay at home mom since 1989. Going on 16 years now. Husband is on a business trip and took our oldest son with him - friends dropped off their two kids for the weekend so that they could go on a romantic weekend away - and I am outnumbered.
This should be a wild weekend. Me and 5 kids in the house.
But tonight I have given up all delusions of having a perfectly clean house, I have surfed through every channel on TV and the programming on every channel is only marginal, the kids wanted to fix dinner for themselves, so I let them. I am sitting in my bedroom listening to a quiet houseful of children, playing nicely together, laughing, and there are no loud crashes or screams or other interruptions. So, I have pulled out my book and am going to read a few pages before making sure everyone has brushed their teeth and then tucking them into bed.
It is a strange transition for the stay at home mom from being fully hands on to letting them be who they are. I am fully out of the diaper phase of parenting and transitioning into the teenager days. They are still too young to drive - but just barely.

I love that I had the opportunity to be with them when they were little people. My husband and I still have student loans to pay off but our children are healthy and happy and self confident and interesting little people - and I didn’t have to miss out on a minute of it.
One of the most interesting things to me right now as a stay at home mom is that even though I have spent most of their waking hours with them up to this point - once they hit puberty - they become new people that I have to spend time with to get to know all over again. My two oldest boys have become more quiet and it takes a long time sitting with them just “chatting” with them about nothing in particular before they really open up to their true thoughts and concerns. I can sit with them for 45 minutes just talking when finally they will express some concern that I can’t really do anything about but just listen. My daughter is on the verge of puberty and I’m sure that will be strange and then our youngest son doesn’t really understand why he doesn’t have the same priviledges in the house as the older teenage siblings.
And yet at the same time it is very quiet around here tonight. So, after years of full on attention to their every movement, I am going to relax tonight and enjoy the quietness of a house with 5 children in it, and read my book.
Hope you all are have a great start to your weekend as well. Talk to you soon!