I was given opportunity to work on adjusting to my children being “adults” in most every sense of the word, especially my sons. My husband and I are learning how to parent children who aren’t kids any more. Adult parent and adult child is a whole new ballgame. Communication skills have to be developed to a new level. New boundaries exist and running into them is sometimes like touching an electric fence that you didn’t know was there.<\/p>\n

In case you think this is my way of subtly saying the vacation was awful – it isn’t. The trip had its share of challenges – we have some strong personalities in our family – but no one was sorry they went, everyone rates it as a success, and we’re better for the experience.<\/p>\n

I’m watching my children become more than just siblings, they’re becoming friends<\/i>. Friends with the bond of family that I pray will keep them together for the rest of their lives no matter where their paths may lead them.<\/p>\n

I find myself in real<\/i> conversations with them individually and together – we talk about how things are between us now, what the future might look like, and how we truly feel about things. Open dialogue is something my husband and I have always encouraged, and we are thankful that it is still there. I’m not naive enough to think they tell me (or even their father) everything <\/i>– but what they do tell me, they tell me honestly, and that’s enough. I don’t have to know everything, as long as they know they can <\/i>tell me anything<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Tonight as I write this, I am listening to the storm outside. There’s thunder, a few flashes of lightening, a flood alert, and rain pouring down in buckets. I have no fear, I feel safe and content. My family is whole and closer than ever. It has been a good summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday we (husband, myself, sons ages 22 and nearly 19, daughter age 15, and Grandma, age 80) returned from a five day family vacation to Chicago (2 travel days, 3 city days). Everyone is glad they went, even with moments of drama and adjustment to who everyone is right now. We learned a lot about …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7zbKo-GK","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sheilascribbles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2650"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sheilascribbles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sheilascribbles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheilascribbles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheilascribbles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sheilascribbles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2650\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sheilascribbles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheilascribbles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheilascribbles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}