**Proud Mama**

What an awesome kid. How many kids would do what he did and not freak out. How many 17 year olds would voluntarily stand up in front of 300 people and give a speech, if his very life didn't depend on it.

I am so proud of him.

This is how how kids keep us hooked as parents, especially through the tough times when we are leafing through the classified ads looking for the young loving couple interested in adopting a child of their own.

• Parents of infants get re-hookedwhen they get that sweet smile after hours of screaming.
• For parents of toddlers it is that spontaneous hug after drawing all over the walls with crayons.
• For parents of teens, it is those fleeting moments where their child does something, even something trivial, and for moment we see them morph to the other side and touch adulthood.
  

That premonition of how it will be someday, even if just for a fleeting moment before a child retreats back to parental hell, carries us well into their 20's.