I just want to say, first of all, that I've been so blessed by you, lately. For the last two or three weeks, I've been especially touched by more than a usual number of notes, kind words, and emails from you. You've been so uplifting and encouraging to me. And I love that I've even gotten to meet some of you recently, too. There's not much that makes me more excited than having someone approach me with an apprehensive look and ask, "Are you the Muffintop lady?" I can't tell you what hearing from you means to me. It's like a shot in the arm. And for those who've left comments, lately, I'm getting a message that you're not being notified by email when I respond to you, so please go back and look at your comment so you can find my response. I need to check into that issue.

No matter what it is, if we do something routinely, we will, invariably, have times when we ask ourselves if it really matters. I think, in those times, God uses us to fill each other's tanks.....keeping us all fueled to carry on with whatever our thing is. And you have certainly done that for me. Each of your words and encouragements have gone straight to my heart and I just wanted to tell you so. I'd be lying if I said I don't ever struggle with words or finding blocks of time, attention, and energy to invest in blogging, but it never fails that, in those precise moments, I'm always, without fail, rejuvenated by your timely words to me. Thank you for that. From the bottom of my heart.

So, I went with Carson to an academic insight day for prospective business students at Mississippi State, this week. I can't believe that, in 5 months, Davis and I will be official, card-carrying empty nesters. Sniff. Anyway, we set out for Starkville to attend the various meetings that were planned to introduce the soon-to-be students to the business school. I was excited to be going in McCool Hall, where I'd taken several classes back in my day. Of course, I found it to be, like many things there, mostly unrecognizable from all of its renovations. Near the end of the day of activities, they separated the parents from the students. The students went to one auditorium to get the feel of a university classroom setting and the parents went into another for a Q&A with the dean and advisers.

Well, the first time parents were raising their hands right out of the gate. They had questions about accessing their children's grades and staying informed of their attendance and all sorts of other nervous inquisitions. You could hear their trepidation in their voices. Finally, the dean, who'd likely dealt with many of this type of parental unit in her day, asked for a show of hands of the parents, who were there with their first child. A large number of hands went up and most of them belonged to the most frequent questioners of the afternoon. Then, she asked for a show of hands from the parents, who were there with their last child. A lot of hands, including mine, shot up with a kind of whoop whoop sort of sound effect to go along with it. I dare say there may have even been a hint of a hoot and a holler. The staff commented that they always get those same differing responses. Clearly, the latter group was the more relaxed and unconcerned group of parents as they'd already experienced the growing pains of letting go of the firstborn and saw this as the first step toward getting their last dependent off of the payroll. They were a little older than the first set and hid their weariness less effectively. These parents were hungry for some relaxation. They had travel brochures, vacation home floor plans, and fishing boat catalogs that they'd been saving for this very moment, which was finally in their sites....thus causing the more audible hand raising.  

I can't say that I'm going to hoot or holler when Carson leaves. Probably more like sniff and snot. But, I'm certainly not as apprehensive as I was when Blair was at this point. There's just sort of a relaxation process that takes place between the first and last child. Maybe after seeing that you didn't kill, maim, scar, or irreversibly alter the first kid, you gain some confidence in your parenting skills and give yourself a little breathing room. Or, perhaps, you're just better poised to see that, even though you didn't exactly follow all the books with the first one, well, they didn't become a carny or get an animal bone piercing in their chin or join the Moonies or anything, so what's the worst that could happen the second time around?  But, really, I just think that it's more of a fatigue issue. You're older and just too tired to worry yourself over the little things. Blair has noted, on several occasions, that things are a lot different for Carson than they were for her when she came up through the system. The way she talks, it's not near the maximum security prison around here that it was in her day. I guess it's more of a white collar kind of lock up now, so it's probably a good thing that we're almost done with Carson's up bringin'. We likely couldn't hold out to monitor him for much longer.

Davis and I will be married 27 years on Friday and we've been in the child rearing business for almost 25 of those. I suppose it's good that, after Carson, we're only left with an animal to guide and nurture and, even with that, we're not doing very well. Davis installed an underground fence, about three weeks ago, to keep young Ruby confined to our yard. We live outside the city limits, where dogs are free to roam, but we weren't sure about Ruby and her vagrant background. We didn't know if she'd see us as just another stop along the way. We didn't have any kind of barrier for Sugar because, well, we've talked about her rule following nature before. Ruby, well, she's another story. We didn't want her stubborn, undaunted, mischievous self wandering off or being a nuisance to the neighbors. Our collection of shoes of unknown origin was starting to grow. So, Davis ordered the fence and got it buried and hooked up to the power source. He placed the little white flags all over the perimeter of the yard where the fence ran.

There was only one last step left. One small step. To train Ruby. To put the collar on her and lead her around the yard and show her the boundaries. To let her hear the beeping warning that would go off when she approached the flags and pull her back, so she'd associate the beeping with stopping and retreating. Eventually, she'd have to feel the shock to put it all together that the flags marked her limits. That was supposed to be the next and final step. Then, the rain came and the flu came and the pretty white flags became just something for Ruby to walk around on her way to the neighbors' yards to get their shoes.

Davis and I stood in the kitchen, this week, watching Ruby frolicking freely through the window. I said, "Are we ever going to train her on that fence thing?" "Doesn't look like it," Davis said as we watched our pound dog of unknown descent with her well bred friends, Izzy, the boxer, and Olive, the Corgi, having the best time. She was running back and forth from our yard to theirs....trampling the little white flags as she ran to and fro. I know I've smooshed a couple with the car and I saw Ruby with one in her mouth, the other day. Basically, we have all those little white flags tracing our property lines to give the impression that our dog is in the throes of some sort of intense training, when, actually, Davis and I are the ones in training. We are being conditioned that if we find an unfamiliar object inside the white flag area, we should busy ourselves finding its rightful owner and anything that happens outside the flagged perimeter is really none of our business.

She's almost got us trained.