It's early Sunday morning, while everyone is still sleeping, and I straighten up the mess from the night before. It's my favorite time to attack any chaos that my daughter and her friends have created. With a touch of sadness, I've realized this will soon be over, since she'll be the last one going off to college, and there won't be anyone to clean up after in the quiet, early hours of the morning.

It feels as if I'm paying homage to all the years that we've had together. Weekends will be very quiet when the last one is out of the house this fall. No matter how much I am looking forward to the freedom, I know that these moments will be missed. For 23 years I've organized my day around my children. I won't be getting up in the middle of the night or early morning to check my diabetic daughter's glucose levels to make sure she's safe to sleep in. Or staying up until 1:00 a.m. to make sure she's home by curfew. Instead I'll be worrying about her being away at college and wondering if she's okay.

Even when I was working long hours, my day was still focused on, or scheduled around, my children's needs. Empty nesting is definitely a time for reflection - a bit of sadness for what's over, the hope that we've done everything we can for them, and accepting that it's time for them to move on to the rest of their lives. It's a time to shed tears in sadness, joy and gratitude for everything they have been, are, and will be to us as budding adults. This Sunday I send a prayer for all of our children for safe and successful futures. I asked some other mothers what they were going to miss the most when their high school seniors go off to their respective colleges next year. My friend Robin has a junior at University of Colorado at Boulder, and her youngest heads out for Penn State in the fall. She said that passing by the kids' empty bedrooms every time she goes downstairs will be the toughest for her. She'll think of what it used to be like on the days they all slept in and the house was focused on family activities. Another friend, Liz, said she will miss the great music always coming out of her son's room and the two of them acting silly together. My friend Mindy's youngest is a sophomore at Wellesley, and while Mindy said it was quiet and kind of lonely with the kids gone, she also misses the bustle of having their friends around too. On the positive side, "the house is much neater, there isn't nearly as much laundry to do - I love that aspect of having them gone." Mindy now has a beautiful Golden Lab who she considers the latest addition to the family. We'll definitely talk about dogs as "kid replacements" in a future blog.

Jill, a friend from Colorado, found a great solution. When I asked her how she dealt with her youngest of three going off to school last year, she replied, "We were in a unique situation - we took the opportunity to move away ourselves when Danny left. It was actually really fun. We took a year and went back to school, which was a really good thing to do. We had a great time by completely changing our environment. So that was unusual, I think. by not going back to the same old home and missing him, it turned into a very positive thing." Jill's story is a good lesson in making plans for yourself as well and getting your future together before the kids head out.

OK, time to pull it together myself. My wisteria's in bloom, my friend's knocking at the door and it's time for a hike on this glorious day. It's a taste of the freedom to come. Maybe this won't be so bad after all.

I would love to hear how you're feeling about empty nesting, how you're coping, and what you're doing to bring yourself comfort and joy.