When I look back on my kids' childhoods, I tend to catalog every summer by one or two major events.

Of course, we had everyone's "first" summer, which consisted of first trips to the pool, the park, eating ice cream, and doing all the summertime things that we do.Then, we had the summer that my Dad died. That was a tough one. Last summer was the summer of "independence," where I turned laundry duties over to the kids, made sure they knew how to buy a gallon of milk, and make themselves a pot of spaghetti without my help.This summer will go down as the one that I spent between the "boohoo" and the "woohoo."Woohoo, as in OMG I no longer have an entourage with me every time I use the bathroom! My kids are starting to be fully functional, slightly human, independent organisms that don't need me to supervise and run every aspect of their lives anymore.Boohoo, as in, my babies are growing up too fast and they don't need their mommy anymore. I'm going to tell you, navigating this line is harder than I thought. It hit me the other day when A came up to me and gave me a hug. I do mean hit me, when his head collided with my nose. Yes, my 11-year-old son's head is just about on the same level as mine. I was pleasantly surprised by the hug, and complimented him on being affectionate. As I stopped and thought about it, I realized that our chances for physical contact had been steadily decreasing over the years. When he started walking, I no longer carried him everywhere. When he was capable of bathing himself, I no longer had to do that either. Soon, he was getting himself dressed and tying his own shoes. These days, he's pretty much hands off, and as E has officially learned to tie her shoes, she is just about entirely on her own, too.On the occasion that I do have to drag him into the bathroom by his ear and show him how to wash his face, our interactions are a lot less pleasant than they used to be.With the onset of puberty, his face seems to have turned into an oil slick and his old method of splashing water on his face just wasn't cutting it any more. As I was rubbing Noxzema "viciously" into his face, I was reminded of how we used to make shampoo "horns" when he was splashing around in the tub. We both emerged from the bathroom crying. Him because I had "scraped his skin off" and me because "where did my pudgy little horn-toad baby go?"A went off to Boy Scout camp for a week. G followed suit a week later, but his session only lasted three days.I'm trying not to be too offended that both boys had their foot lockers packed days in advance and counted down the days until they left more attentively than they count down Santa's arrival.We cheated a little bit, and the wonderful husband stayed at camp with both boys, although he did leave during the day to go to work.Nonetheless, there were no weepy phone calls home that I was missed or that they were homesick.In fact, I think the only reason I got a phone call at all is because both boys were a little anxious to check in on our cat, who has been having some health problems.Once G got the "Tubby Update" he was likely to drop the phone, which was on speaker, and shout random answers to my daily queries, as he and his fellow Scouts raced around the camp site making merry.A was slightly more interested in the phone call, I think because it was the only time of the day when he got to encounter an electronic device. Keeping him on the phone longer than a minute or two was impossible.E even had her first foray into group sleepovers at "gymnastic camp." As we waited to sign in, her eyes were getting bigger, and she started hugging her stuffed animal a little tighter.I was sure I was going to be getting a phone call to come pick her up later in the evening. Then, one of her good friends from her old school showed up, the two of them ran off to get into some mischief, and I didn't even get a goodbye hug. I picked up a slightly sleepy kid the next morning, right at the scheduled time.It does my heart good to see them setting off on their own adventures, without even a look back at me.While the look of "yeah right" that I got from G when I asked him if he missed me at all while he was at camp is a knife in my heart, my brain knows that that is the right response.His mommy is the last thing that a normal, happy, healthy 9-year-old should be thinking about when he's given three days to trek around in the woods and have fun with his friends.My heart and my brain are going to be fighting this battle for a long time, maybe even forever. The first night that everyone was home from camp, we were hit with massive thunderstorms.My arms were only too happy to hold the three frightened children who came screaming into my bedroom wanting their mommy. And the next night, I was only too happy to reclaim my own side of the bed and pillow and get the sleep I lost the night before.Liz Pinkey is a contributing writer to the Times News. Her column appears weekly in our Saturday feature section.