My kids are to this day the best thing I’ve ever accomplished – and they are now starting families of their own.

Three daughters – it seemed like a lot, when I was younger. Being a Stay-Home-Mom seemed like a lot. The messes in the house all day – every day. The bickering. The laundry – oh, the laundry! The sheer avalanche of smallish socks, that mysteriously lost their partners, never to be paired again (unless, of course, I threw out the lone socks…invariably, the other one would turn up again the next day…).

The sleepless nights filled with one, two or three crying kiddos (and sometimes a crying mom, too).

The very early morning wake-up call from the husband, traveling for business overseas, from his cushy, clean, expensive hotel, to complain how wronged he was, when his fancy steak in the restaurant the evening before was not cooked to perfection, the fluffy clean towels in the hotel room were too small, the conversation with the other adults there did not circle around his particular – and, even then, very strange interests…

It seemed like I was being buried, never to emerge again from an avalanche of, well, EVERYTHING.

but even in all of that, there were hugs from my girls. Snuggles in the morning. Teaparties with hats, and bears, and fishhie-crackers. Playground picnics. Hikes in the canyon, walks in the woods, butterflies, and horseback rides, bowling alleys and cookie bakings… soooo many fun moments with my favorite people on earth.

My duaghters always were – and in fact still are – my world (and the avalanche of missing socks is about to descend on their homes as well)- seeing their worlds emerge in their own ways, is nothing less than magical.