I looked out my dining room window this morning to see if Wondergirl had gotten on her bus. She doesn't know it, but I've been doing this for many years, ever since she began school.

In the place where we lived when she was in Kindergarten, she got on the bus at the same stop as her brother, just at the top of the cul-de-sac where we lived. There was a bully there who liked to pick on her brother. No amount of discussion with the mother of said bully ("He should just learn to take it and not be such a sissy or to fight back" Yes, against a kid three years older and fifty pounds heavier! Right.) brought about any change. When I complained to the principal of the school, it was suggested that I drive my kids every day, if I didn't want my son to get beaten up. I did for awhile, out of desperation.

From then on the habit was ingrained. I surrepticiously keep watch, glancing now and again until she is safely on the bus.

This morning as I looked out, the most incredible sight caught my eye. We have a streetlamp-type light in our front yard. All the houses have them; my spouse is even on the "light committee" that sends out notices to homeowners whose lights are burnt out. (Hey, its a way to get involved that does't require meetings.) about two feet to the left of the lamp post was this enormous spider. When I looked closer I noticed that the spider was suspended in the middle of this beautiful, picture-perfect web, and that a string of web extended all the way to the tree that is about seven feet away.

I went upstairs and got my spouse to come down and look at it, because the dining room window gave the best angle, with the dew shimmering off the web. Otherwise you could not tell that the spider had somehow woven this wonderful thing between two structures.

I feel sometimes as though my connection to my children is as fragile as that web I saw this morning. It shimmers with dew drops on it, but moves with the slightlest breeze, and nobody really understands the lengths to which I have had to labor to build the conenctions and keep them in place.

When I came home to do some work here this afternoon, the web, and the spider are gone. I hope both were successful at what needed to be done. I hope my connection to my son holds, and has done what it needed to do even though it cannot be seen in the same light anymore.

I think I'll keep watching out the dining room window each morning. For a little while longer.