Years ago, my friend and I would stand outside our classroom doors during passing periods and commiserate with each other about parenting woes, as our children had more or less grown up together. The spring of their senior year, we congratulated ourselves on a job well-done. They were both in the top 10, on the tennis team, and had been accepted to the colleges of their choice. Ha! Little did we know that parenting was only just beginning…

Fast forward twenty years…

This same son is training for the Ironman Boulder in June. Apparently, it has been on his bucket list for several years. As part of his training, he is biking 20-40 miles several times a week. As I’m writing this post, he is out (alone) riding along a Farm to Market road. He knows that I worry, so he for his safety and my peace of mind, he uses the Strava Beacon app that lets me check on him during his rides. Seeing his blinking red dot moving calms me…until it isn’t.

Yesterday, for some reason, his dot stopped for about 20 minutes, and I convinced myself that he had either been hurt or had used both his spare tubes and was stuck. But wouldn’t he have called? He’s probably fine…or not. After about 10 minutes of worrying, I convinced my husband we should drive out to his “dot” in out truck in case he needed help.

Turns out he was fine. We passed him, turned around, and headed home. “Let’s not tell him that we drove out to check on him,” I told Ken. He chuckled, but agreed.

As I reflected on the experience later in the evening, I realized that I had become the mom in the book Love You Forever that I used to read to both my sons. In It, the mom would sneak into her son’s room every night after he was asleep to rock him and sing to him that as long as she was living, her baby he’d be. Even when he was a grown man, the mom would drive across town and climb into his bedroom window to rock him and sing that same song to him. (I didn’t realize until recently that they both thought the book was “creepy.” Sigh…)

I thought we’d gotten away with our secret endeavor, but when Matt came over this morning before today’s ride, he remarked, “I thought I saw you guys pass me on the way back into town yesterday, and I figured you were freaking out.” I confessed and showed him the book to remind him that he and his brother are my greatest treasures.

A friend told me years ago that when your children are small, they step on your toes. But when they grow older, they will step on your heart.

Truly a wise woman.