So, it is happening….the big one is starting his senior year.  School does not start for another couple of weeks, but football two-a-days start tomorrow which pretty much means we are there.  He is a senior.  This is happening.

We have called him Buckaroo from pretty much day one.  He has been our little buckaroo.  We call him Buck during games, when he comes home at night and when we say good morning, it is “Good morning, Buck”.

And now he is getting there, to the place we work our whole lives to get them to and to the place we dread our whole live coming.  There are no words.  He brings so much to our house.  He is a JOY to be around and I do not know what it will be like without him here.

But there is another waiting in the wings.  Our little BooBear.  Just like Buck, Boo has had his name since about day one.  I don’t know how it started, but BooBear was what we called him from the beginning.  Boo for short.  As in, “What’s up, Boo?”.  And he has been a dutiful little brother.  He understands that he is not playing competitive soccer this fall because we can’t travel for tournaments.  Buck has 8 more games that we will EVER see him play football and we are not going to miss one.   And Boo gets it.

Boo knows that every fiber of love that we put into Buck, is the same that we have for them both.  It just happens that Buck is going first.  But the passion that we have for seeing Buckaroo succeed is the same passion that we have for seeing  BooBear succeed, as well.  The one leaving our nest this year is the one we are preening the feathers on, but that does not mean we don’t see our little one growing his own wings.

It is a balance, and always will be.  You worry about projecting favorites.  You worry about not giving enough.  And you worry about making sure it is all even. But it never is.  Life is not even.  Not even close.  Sometimes one gets more attention.  Sometimes the other does.  It has to be fluid and it has to be stable all at once.  Not even, but a nice balance.

Life is always that, a nice balance.  No one can make it even.  Life is not even, but even and balanced are two different things.  Even is everyone gets the exact same and balanced is everyone gets what they need when they need it. Even can’t happen, even in the best of circumstances.   But balance is where the magic happens.  Balance is where we find our center.  Balance is where we breathe…and smile.  xxoo