doing something right...

Two for two. That's a pretty amazing statement as a mom.

Two kids. Two Valedictorians. (Although one of many in each of their respective classes, anyone with a 4.0+ GPA.)

The youngest graduates tomorrow. Technically, she's already done. She's also 2/3 done with an associates degree from the local college, because of her many dual-credit courses during high school, and she has a free year coming up thanks to scholarships. She'll be completing her associates degree in the next year. After that, she'll go on to her bachelor's degree, which is a 2-3 year remaining educational journey. Kids have so many opportunities these days that my generation and those before me didn't have.

When hubby and I were dating, my youngest sister, knowing my school record (honor roll but not valedictorian, back when there was only one per class), blessed us by saying, "You two are going to have smart kids!" How very prescient of her, over twenty-four years ago.

A week ago, we held the grad party in our garage. Tomorrow, all three public high schools in town have graduation.

So, I had been pretty busy getting things together while trying to write over this past month, and the prep work also stole some of my attention from writing. Some of the stuff (buying decorations, designing the banner, designing announcements and then sending them out) had been done for a while, but the stress of the week or two before the grad party was wearing on me. I'm used to organizing events, but this was my own child, so I didn't want to forget anything, despite the simplicity of it.

After tomorrow, it's all done.

But aside from the proud mom moment, I want to say that it's not natural intelligence that is the reason for such achievements. It came down to hard work and dedication by each of my kids. I wasn't a perfect A student when I was in high school, but I wanted to be; I had to work for it, and I made sure my kids knew how to work hard and have the self-discipline to do well. You can have all the intelligence in the world, but if you don't have the discipline to do the work required, it all means nothing. Sacrifice and hard work contribute as much as intelligence and can even make up for a lack in that area.

You have to do some work that you may not like in order to succeed in life. We taught our kids that lesson when they were young, starting with assigning chores to earn privileges and rewards. That carried over throughout their young lives at home and in school and hopefully will continue into adulthood. It was the best thing we could have done for our kids. We know what we did right, the same things many parents do right for their kids.

I wish the best for all graduates...

ID 370078026 | Congratulations © Natalia Sintsova | Dreamstime.com