My son is home from college for the summer. He arrived last weekend with his schoolbooks and sound system, his desk and easy chair, the leftover food from his kitchen cupboards and lots of dirty laundry.

He stashed most of his belongings in the basement for his return to school next fall, plugged in his stereo, unpacked his clothes and started the laundry.

Later that evening, as he sat on the deck with my husband and me, enjoying the unusually warm spring weather and drinking a beer, I said, "Luke, there is only one thing I want you to know about being home this summer."

My husband laughed out loud. "Oh-uh, Luke," he said. "Here it comes."

Luke, who is 22, groaned, "Is this something I don't want to hear?" he asked, bracing himself for the usual transition of being on his own to once again living under his parents' roof.

"This isn't a rule," I said quickly, remembering his childhood tendency to resist the rules set for him and his siblings. "It's just something I want you to know about me."

Growing up, Luke and I often wrestled over household policies, more so than I did with my other two children. He was the one who pushed the limits set for him, questioned the rationale behind my decisions and sought greater freedom from parental oversight, oftentimes earlier than I thought he was ready.

But, as Luke moves further from his teen years and into adulthood, he is also the one who will sit with us on a spring evening, content to hang around the house and work in the garage with my husband on one of their cars.

And, as we sat under the darkening sky, I wanted Luke to know that I, too, was changing. That even though the greatest joy in life has been that of being a mother to my three children, now, as the children move toward adulthood, I am enjoying greater freedom to do the things I want to do. Things like reading again those thick literature books that I so enjoyed; traveling with my husband at our pace to destinations we want to see; writing again, not only a newspaper column, but possibly a short story or novel, something I had always dreamed of doing.

So I said to him, "The only thing I want you to know is that while you are home this summer, I don't want to just be 'the mom.'"

Not that I don't intend to cook dinner, or do his laundry along with the rest of the family's, or have healthy snacks available for him to grab as he comes and goes. But that he should understand that I am someone who is changing and growing, too. A person who is crafting a life for herself beyond that incredibly busy time of being a mother to three growing children.

I continued: "There are really three adults in the house now," I said. "When things need to be done, one of us has to do them. And I don't want to be the one to monitor those things anymore."

Luke didn't argue or protest. He just smiled and said OK, as if he, too, could feel the shifting sands of time.

I, like many mothers in their 50s, am astonished at how swiftly my children have grown beyond their need for mothering, transforming themselves into responsible, caring adults. This, in turn, is pushing me toward a life beyond those all-consuming early years of parenting, to a new phase, not marked by sadness or loss, but by a sense of discovery.

Motherhood —- ever-changing, always challenging, eternally intriguing.

To all women who nurture and care for children, Happy Mother's Day.

Linda K. Schmitmeyer is a freelance writer living in Middlesex Township. Her e-mail address is lks260@zoominternet.net.