I've been thinking alot about babies lately.....looking forward to adding some branches to the family tree.  I can't wait to gather up some more poses like these--but maybe in color!  I hope Danielle and Monet are feeling well and I wish we could see more of Emily. Don't you like mother and child pictures?

We took Ryan on another college visit this week to Cortland.  He's nearly certain he'd like to be a Red Dragon (that would be a Cortland student) but we still have one school to see.  So of course this got both James and I thinking about our college searches and choices.  It sounds like you had experiences similar to mine.  And by that I mean I was ON MY OWN to figure out college selection.  We absolutely did not get in the car to go visit.  My parents did not get intimately involved with applications, essays, SATs, recommendations and so forth.  Although leaving for that first day was a relatively big deal, I am betting not one of my siblings has a memory of it.  I feel certain Ryan will remember that same day for Amy.

Recently I was reading an article about today's parents in the education process.  The author noted that if  you wanted to know what was missing from someone's childhood, all you had to do was observe their parenting.  Parents try to give their children what they feel they lacked in their own childhood, sometimes with excessive enthusiasm (I think they call it helicopter parenting).  Since I was ON MY OWN to figure out college selection, I guess Ryan benefits from more of my direct attention to his search.  I'm not alone in this and I hope I can be less a helicopter and more a hummingbird (fleeting, gentle and beautiful!).  Lots of parents in a generation act in a similar manner.

My school experience did not often include my parents, even though my Dad was a teacher.  They did not check my homework, attend events or talk to my teachers.  But then again there were several younger siblings needing little things like food, medical attention and haircuts.  So perhaps we are trying to give our children things that we missed in our childhood even if it didn't seem like a big deal at the time. 

So here are mothers and children for you.  Marguerite Coffarelli sadly didn't have enough time with her children when they were young and Mom didn't have enough time with her children period.  But their influence lives on in the generations that follow.