Recently a maniac squirrel was messing around with our electricity. Okay, maybe not a maniac squirrel. But definitely a very windy day that caused our appliances and lights to go on and off, crazily.

As we backed out of the driveway later that day, our fifteen year old daughter said "I liked it better when I was little and you used to tell me not to worry. That everything was going to be okay."

I guess that having me racing around the house wasn't exactly the picture of a mom in control. (I could picture THAT squirrel perched by our alliant energy box, messing with the wires while watching me through the patio doors and laughing.)

But maybe it's in those moments of indecision, of life happening, that our daughters begin to see us as they really should. Not super mom who protects from every danger, but a woman doing the best she can. Just like my daughter will grow to be someday. In her travels through life, she'll have to face her share of trouble and she may not have a clue what to do. But hopefully she will remember that I often didn't know what to do either, but I did try to do the best I could. Making some mistakes, yet moving forward.

Who'd have expected that lesson from a maniac squirrel?

When our daughter was little we lived in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. Bears prowled around the woods on the edge of our back yard. And occasionally one came out to look in the window at me. (okay, okay, that only happened once... but it was traumatic!)

Understandably, our daughter was fearful of being outside without a parent with her. Recently, she told me that I reassured her by telling her this:

"Oh honey! You are so sweet that any big old bear would save you for dessert. He'd eat your brothers first and since you have three of them, that will give you plenty of time to get to the house."

Good grief. What was I thinking???

Catapulting cheesecake

I carefully mixed the cream cheese, sugar, eggs and vanilla in the big bowl with the blue stripe. Slid the cheesecake into the oven, then checked it regularly to make sure it didn't get overdone. Poured the sour cream, sugar and vanilla topping over the slightly cooled cake and then back in the oven it went.

The morning of the meeting, I gently rinsed and dried the fresh raspberries, and meticulously arranged them on the chilled cheesecake. When lunch time arrived, I removed the cheesecake from the refrigerator and carried it across the kitchen. The impractical plate it rested on matched the other dishes perfectly and I was pleased.

For a few seconds.

Because as I set the cheesecake on the counter announcing “Be sure to save room for dessert”, it slid on its spring form pan bottom, off the impractical-but-pretty plate – across the counter, and catapulted over the stools and onto the floor.

The collective gasp, huge eyes and lips formed into perfect giant O's would have been comical had it not been such a sad moment.

I couldn't look. I stood with my hands over my eyes. But one of the efficient ladies scooped up the raspberries and washed them off and another picked the cake up and set it back on the counter and we laughed.

And then those lovely ladies ate the cake. Almost every crumb. Not only did they eat it but they smacked their lips and licked their forks clean.

My husband heard the story later and looked horrified, not at the cake catapulting across the stools, but at the fact that the ladies ate the cake!

I chalked it up to good female friendships. They may have had their qualms about eating that cake, wondering when the floor was washed and did we have any pets in the house, but they cared more about making me feel better.

But after talking to a few of them, I realized it was more than that. They wanted cheesecake.

And that is the kind of friends I want to surround myself with. Throwing caution to the wind and collectively licking our cheesecake forks clean before we take up our knitting or our book club selection of the month or our pens to tackle that new writing prompt. Ready to support each other to the end. But mostly, wanting cheesecake!

All of our kids were home for Christmas. Plus a girlfriend or two that were in and out of our house quite regularly. There was more laundry than normal. Less leftovers. (way less leftovers) and once again I felt like I needed to stop by the bank and take out a small loan prior to going to the grocery store.

It felt good. To go to sleep at night knowing that they were all home. Knowing that the questions I had forgotten to ask could easily be asked in the morning.

When we dropped the last one off in Madison, to catch his flight back to Tucson, I road silently

for many blocks as I wiped tears and blew my nose.

But I know that deep down in my heart, I don't want them to have to move back to the bunk bed down the hall. I want them to fly high, dream big, and pursue the God-given passion in their lives.

I think it is going to get easier to have them gone. But it will never change how much I love to have them home.