Somedays it is just a simple goal...

It was a beautiful fall day today so I took the kids for a walk.  Laci was on her bike and I pushed Calvin in the stroller.  We have a beautiful wooded trail in our neighborhood.  On the way back, Laci was quite a bit ahead and I was hoping she remembered to stop before crossing the street.  She usually does a good job of that now.  I had images of the worst flash in my head.  I was reminded of something a friend of mine told me at her son's first birthday party, just a few months before Laci was born.  She said "Sometimes, the goal of the day is just to keep them alive."  I think a lot about all of my goals for the kids - how I want them to be as adults, their educations, their morals, their faith, how to teach them by example, etc.  But sometimes it is just a simple goal - to keep them alive to adulthood.  From what I read in the paper, we are just in the early years of that.  I think the teenage years will be a whole other ballgame!