Driving Along In My Automobile

The kids really love their Cozy Coupes.  And pretending they're going places.  I love watching them play and savoring these moments where I can keep them safe in my driveway.  All to soon they will be going to actual restaurants with their friends after a football game.  Driving on their own.  And waving goodbye to me for real.  When those things happen, I am fairly confident that I will be seeing past and present at the same time.  As the family car leaves the driveway with my smiling teenagers inside, I will be seeing little Cozy Coupes creeping along and chubby little hands waving at me.  Real keys, plastic ignitions, it really doesn't matter.  They will still be play pretending in a way.  Testing out their almost-adulthood.  In bigger toys.  And I'll still be mothering, just with greater worries and less hovering.  Yikes.  Oh, how profoundly grateful I am for today and for these moments with them now.  The days when our driveway seems a mile long to them.  When I am the only approval they seek.  And when plastic cars provide the only adventure they need.