After the launch

College Majors Visual Arts and Film Majors
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<p>Thanks Greenwitch. Yes, it seems it might be time to renew the art of letter writing. My husband’s grandmother is still alive and regularly send us letters in her beautifully shaky handwriting. She is always charming and kind. I feel so uplifted when I read them. </p>

<p>bears…you are scripting the pilot for a new TV show. I have this image now of young Switters at a nightclub with his older gf and loveblue’s daughter is dancing in the background with Mary Kate Olsen. Forget about Gossip Girls. It’s Cooper Town.</p>

<p>We didn’t eat the luncheon food due to our adventure and the reception was just wine, beer, fruit, cheese and crackers.</p>

<p>Maeda mentioned his oldest daughter just started Wellesly. Now he joins our ranks and can have some understanding of the letting go, but no empty nest for a long time since his youngest is 4. He also mentioned that one of his missions is diversity and that this is the most diverse class ever in the history of RISD. 43 countries represented. He told a proud story of how much money last year’s students raised for Partners in Health/Haiti Relief. They put on a musical that brought in $10,000 which was matched by PIH. 10 colleges participated in the fundraising challenge bringing in $100,000 total and RISD, the smallest school, was 10% of that total. An audience member stood up and shouted out “Thank You…I am from Haiti”</p>

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<p>you mean, manga story line. sure thing, always my dear.</p>

<p>hummm Wellesly… just as I thought… missed Barnard safety Smith Scripps eh?</p>

<p>OK ok I quit. now that little draemon is there, RISD ( include maeda) will shine in new light.</p>

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<p>MCAD now has RISD’s former provost as its president. D said "I hope MCAD doesn’t become cut throat like RISD. But we liked his orientation speech, I think all will be well…</p>

<p>[MCAD:</a> News](<a href=“http://www.mcad.edu/showPage.php?pageID=1090&storyID=208]MCAD:”>http://www.mcad.edu/showPage.php?pageID=1090&storyID=208)</p>

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<p>do you remember we talked about art schools being OPEC or baseball league?
Redsox manager promoted/moved to take over Twins.
nope, he is gonna have to wear Midwest uniform and play nice, heheh</p>

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<p>TrinSF and Awbacon - we want to hear how it’s going!!</p>

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<p>Hello all
I thought maybe I’d post a little update. MICA kid sent a text asking me to send her her retainer. Why is she there with no retainer? I ask myself. I decide it’s best not to say a word and just send the retainer. She needed a USB cable for her printer and hadn’t picked one up yet, so we sent one that had been lying around the house to her as well. She never replied to my first several emails. But when I inquired about food, I got a response. She and her room mate had gone grocery shopping but were unable to find gluten free cereal – and they had eaten all the cereal I had left on move in day. So DH and I proceeded to get into an argument – H saying she needs to go eat in the dining hall (she still has only been there twice) and me saying she needs to eat and I’d rather have her have food, even if it’s not 100% balanced nutritious meals and not in the dining hall – I wanted to send her a couple of cases of gluten free cereal from Amazon. Cases of cereal are not ideal, I know, and they’d have to store it, but eventually they’d eat it. H finally relented and I sent gf cereal (and gf protein bars and gf ice cream sugar cones – but DH doesn’t know about that) through Amazon. MICA kid also ran through what food she has eaten already and sent me a shopping list of things to bring with me on my proposed food run/visit on the 26th (H and Manga daughter are objecting to this plan too… they both think she should go to the dining hall – even though I’ve repeatedly pointed out that the dining hall doesn’t have gluten free cereal anyway). </p>

<p>Anyway, MICA girl claims to be very busy with school work, which is good. She sent me a photo of her face, laughing at me when i texted her to send it to me because I “didn’t want to be grossed out” when I saw her in person. So that issue seems to be at rest at the moment.</p>

<p>She still hasn’t refilled several medications. Her doctor told me that she had called him for the refills but she talked so fast he didn’t get her address – and she never returned his call when he called to ask her to give him the address again, but slower. So I asked her if she wanted me to get the prescriptions filled and then send them down to her or did she want me to send her the scripts. She texted me back to send her the scripts, so it looks like she thinks she’s prepared to deal with that on her own – good! With her it’s always two steps forward and one step back… but at least the net result is moving forward.</p>

<p>What do you all think about the food? She isn’t really giving the dining hall a chance. I have no idea what the room mate is doing… they have different schedules and I suspect the room mate is assertive enough to go ask the chef to make her something and to eat.</p>

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<p>Hi G-mom-</p>

<p>Did you pay for the dining hall? tell her to go steal fruit, at the very least.</p>

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<p>Well this is a tough one to ask for outside advice because only you know how bad it would be if she isn’t strict about following the gf diet. Perhaps the risk is so high and the outcome so severe you really feel you have to protect her and get her the g-free food. If it is life threatening, I know it must be near impossible to step back and let her take more control.</p>

<p>However, it sounds like are enabling her avoidance of the cafeteria and having her take more control over her diet. The downsideis that she is still dependent upon you for much of her diet and she avoids the very important social side of the cafeteria. Last, if your H is pretty set against the cereal and you send other food as well knowing he wouldn’t support this you are going to encounter major issues on the home front eventually and a united parental approach to issues is always the best. You and H are the best judges of what is best for D and it must be very worrying to know that she could really undermine her health if she doesn’t eat properly. </p>

<p>What I do know, from having a teen daughter, is that parental efforts of support are very often interpreted by teen as controlling and belittling. Perhaps she interprets your offers to supplement her stash of g-free food as REALLY a sign that you don’t have confidence that she can handle the cafeteria. Thus, she takes your food support as indicating that her parents know she won’t be assertive with chefs and if she gets really sick from a mistake or poor eating she will fail just like you expect her to. Incredibly, your support is seen as implied criticism and treating her as a child. So instead of actually helping teen, your food support system may be undermining her ability to take responsibility for her health. Again, this is not my reasoning, just what I have come to expect from the twisted logic of a teen girl…</p>

<p>Perhaps a better approach is to complement her on the couple of times she did make it to the cafeteria or taking charge of the medications and indicate you have confidence in her to take over her health issues but you are there as backup with questions etc. Remember, she asked for gf cereal not all the stuff you sent. Tell her the recent gf food buying spreewas mama-bear action and not really warranted given that she has managed to stay healthy so far and shown initiative with the meds, requested her retainer and, even made a the couple of visits to the cafeteria. …just a knee jerk action because you love her but you do have confidence in her. She has a challenging condition that you are helping her transition to managing on her own. </p>

<p>Remember the mantra of the mothers of difficult to parent teen girls…start with the positive, always start with the positive…</p>

<p>My worries with skinny S are similar but obviously much less severe. I had to literally stop myself from sending another care package–he is on a meal plan and he needs to eat the food that we are paying for and learn to eat a balanced diet without me enabling his poor habits with snack food that he can keep in his room. I have told myself that for my own mental health I will deliver cases of milk at parent’s weekend and take him out for a really good steak dinner…but that is it. So find some actions that you think will give you some peace of mind (cereal and planned visits to restock basics for example) but don’t go overboard and undermine her budding independence and her need to take ownership of her health issues. It sounds like a complicated balancing act so good luck.</p>

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<p>As usual, you are right on the money, FAMMoM! Thank you.</p>

<p>I spoke with the MICA girl’s therapist the other night. MICA girl sent her a long email and spoke to her on the phone (lucky me, MICA girl and therapist will speak on phone twice a month and therapist will send me a bill). The therapist told me that the kid is doing great – and that she went on and on about how ‘wonderful’ I’ve been (lol). So,at least from the kid’s perspective, things are going well. She really likes her room mate (the other celiac) and she is really busy trying to keep up with the workload. She’s been to the learning resource center twice and has been sent away both times and told they were busy and she should come back later (time for me to step in and find out if that’s true and if so, then complain – we spent a lot of money getting her testing updated and expect it to be a resource and support for her – not have her sent away and told to come back later… grrrr!)</p>

<p>I am envious that the therapist got to have a long conversation with her. She didn’t call home last night, so technically she’s one day over her weekly call requirement, but today is my birthday so I’m assuming (hoping) that she wanted to call me to wish me a happy birthday.</p>

<p>As far as the food issue goes, yes, I shouldn’t have gotten into it with DH. But I discussed this with the MICA kids therapist. She still has only gone to the dining hall twice. I also looked at her bank account and she has spent very little $$ (good! Therapist says she’s scared to death to spend money). The therapist said that she asked the kid about the food issues and kid told her she ‘doesn’t know what to do’ from a social standpoint (my middle daughter has Asperger’s Syndrome, and MICA kid has some social awkwardness and social issues, she’s very much a loner) and also that she is working and eating at the same time in the dorm and doesn’t want to take a couple of hours off to go to the dining hall (I’m not sure how long it takes, but probably extra time is involved when you have to meet with the chef and then wait for him to have time to make you something gluten free). The therapist agrees that it’s probably better for her to have stuff easily available to eat so that she does eat rather than expecting her to go out and deal with it (like hunt down a source for gf cereal) on her own. So the therapist thinks since the kid is so thrilled by how supportive I’m being that we go ahead and bring her more food next week. I really HATE that she is wasting the money we spent on the dining hall, but the most important thing is for her to successfully get through this semester. If I have to bring her food once a month, I guess I can do that. Next semester, unless something drastically changes, we won’t be buying the meal plan. So I guess I’d better get busy baking again. She did request a variety of food items – and while it’s true that I sent her the gf sugar cones without her asking for them, I think she will appreciate the treat. She loves ice cream. She had asked for another box of protein bars. She’s asking for peanut butter cookie dough, lol. I will also make sure there are fruits and vegetables in the groceries I bring her next week. </p>

<p>So I’m glad that she tells the therapist so much of what’s going on --but I feel left out. The therapist told me that one of her assignments was held up by the teacher as an example and she got a B+ – I don’t know that I’d brag about a B+ – I think it’s great, but I can see her not telling me about that because she thinks I expect an A. But given all she’s going through and dealing with, I’m glad she got a B+. I hope she keeps up the good work and even improves. </p>

<p>So now this thread will be back at the top! Yay!</p>

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<p>Yay for bumping the thread! And Happy Birthday G-mom. </p>

<p>So about gluten-free. I she also a vegetarian? If not, could she go and eat a bun-less burger and a salad? Then while she is there, pocket some fruit? Maybe if you approach it from the hey kid, could you save us a little money since we already paid for it point of view it might work. Also, I had a thought which was, the next time you visit, get her to take you to the cafeteria to use some of her meal plan money, and do it from a “its all about G-mom, not MICAkid perspective.” Like its not that she’s wrong for not eating there, but you feel like trying it out, and since its already paid for…</p>

<p>Frankly, if I had to march into a cafeteria, which is full of already prepared food, and ask someone to make me something special, I dont think I could do it. And I see her point about the time thing…</p>

<p>Well, I think I am doing better on the empty nest, I made it through most of today without thinking about my S. He is incredibly happy, loves his professors, says they are all smart.</p>

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<p>from my college visit eating tour, those cafeteria burger could have made out from anything but meat. them fillers must have tons of gluten in it. so is mystery chicken patties. It is hard to pick food that is shaped like ingredients. then you still have to worry about sauce, marinade, seasoning that could would contain gluten.
s*** is tough, as my kid would say.
I wish he could eat there instead, for your money’s worth.
how do you afford to take care of all them Ds mentally physically and financially, I mean from day one eaches ?
you are one super mom.</p>

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<p>switters love, I am happy and sad at the same time.
so close but so far Cooper is…</p>

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<p>If I were in school with a gawd-awful heavy load, dealing with ‘what am I gonna eat now that won’t make me sick’, I would be dancing happy with a B+. Can you tell her the B+ makes you happy? Does she know the therapist is talking to you? As far as the food goes, I know my D would not have time to have the chef (if they had one there) make her something special to eat for every meal, but would grab whatever fresh fruit they had!</p>

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<p>BandD: Thank you; but I don’t ever feel like a supermom. I feel like I’m floundering through life – getting through one crisis to face another. I’m in awe of FAMMOM and the other members here (including you) who seem to have figured life out much more than i have. I have gotten used to people thinking I’m crazy and am able to shrug that off (this scene comes to mind: It’s the end of the school year and the school is serving a special hot dog lunch to the kids, so I come to the school with gluten free hot dogs, buns and condiments for my kids, so they can be the ‘same’. I have a bottle of ketchup with me and I set it down on the table. Some other Mom swoops down and tries to snag my SPECIAL bottle of ketchup – maybe I was a little hormonal that day, I don’t quite remember – but there was a little scene where I was telling her she couldn’t take my SPECIAL ketchup (it’s just Heinz, for heaven’s sake – but uncontaminated Heinz) and she was looking at me like I’d lost my mind. sigh.). The Aspie kid’s problems are difficult too… at the end of the year she spent much of her time in bed. She wouldn’t get up. She was practically catatonic. The shrink said she was ‘decompensating’ and in some ‘other’ reality. Ugh. So other parents/teachers are like what do you mean you ‘can’t’ get her out of bed??? What do you mean you ‘can’t’ get her to school??? But no matter the consequences you gave this kid, no matter the bribes, no matter the threats, she just would NOT respond. She actually was very close to be hospitalized. I’ve come to have a lot more compassion for the parents of kids with PDD and Aspergers… and any kind of chronic mental/emotional/health issue.</p>

<p>Thankfully the Manga girl doesn’t seem to need a therapist or shrink or meds. DH is a computer scientist and is relatively well paid (so much so that we didn’t qualify for any ‘need’ based financial aid – even though we pointed out that we have additional medical expenses and food expenses that a ‘normal’ family doesn’t have). MICA girl gets to go to MICA because I was fortunate and this job fell into my lap. But this job is going to end so I don’t know what we’ll do then. The house is in need of some repairs that have been put off too long (and look to be put off longer) we drive OLD cars. Mostly we spend money on the kids medical issues and schooling. We have no retirement savings to speak of. We don’t come from wealthy backgrounds (and we both have a lot of siblings) so there is no inheritance in our future. We do what we need to do for now. Shrink and therapist said not to send MICA girl to public school, so we didn’t. Shrink and therapist said don’t send Aspie girl to public school (she was only diagnosed about two years ago, though we’ve known for some time that there were issues) so we didn’t. Manga girl goes to the same Catholic school sort of by default. It’s not that the public school here is so horrible (though there are some issues) it’s just that these particular kids are not kids that fit neatly into the school ‘box’. Even now Shrink is warning us, after the disastrous last year with the Aspie girl, that maybe she needs to go to a ‘therapeutic’ school… whatever that is. </p>

<p>But I think I’ve wandered severely off topic, lol. MICA girl did call yesterday for my birthday. She only had five minutes left on her phone (she has prepaid plan but spent 50 minutes on call with therapist :frowning: ). So we had to recharge her phone. She hadn’t received the cereal yet. She was working hard. I was really, really pleased that she did remember to call me and wish me a happy birthday. I seriously thought she wouldn’t really remember.</p>

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<p>redbug - I consider MCAD kid lucky.
cafeteria fruits usually means sad shriveled apples and oranges and bruised bananas.- these are at tippy top residential NE LACs, 50K/y plus where they’d make you buy food plan.
its salad bar means white iceberg, fake tomatoes ( it looks like one but never ever tastes like one- where do they get those?) out of the can green beans, corn, maybe chick pea or two, hard boiled egg slice with scary discolored york , mystery tri colored spiral pasta salad (don’t take chance here)
I often wondered if they are not paying for actual “food”:legal legit payed worker’s wages from the grandma casher to the busboy in the back all with SS# and cleared immigration status, otherwise the high mighty school’ll be in bad rep,
make your own soft icecream machine-vanilla only but comes with stale make your own toppings; sprinkles, nuts, cookie crumbs
stir fry station gadget- individual wok, nifty safe electric burner ( prevents fire and possible burn lawsuit), designer paddle and tong, oil and sauce in Nobu -style squirt bottles.</p>

<p>So G mom, feel better rolling them meatballs and cookie dough.</p>

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<p>Happy belated b-day G-Mom! Another virgo here (sept 10). I am glad your D is doing so well. I think its great that she is so positive to her therapist. I think you are right that she is probably assuming only an A will meet your standards …that is sooo my D too who got an honorable mention in an essay contest but “didn’t win so was embarrassed to tell anybody” (what is WITH that self imposed standard of perfection of our D’s that they then project onto their mothers?).</p>

<p>You have a huge serving of responsibilities on your plate so take some time to congratulate yourself and appreciate what you have achieved precisely because you need to be a little over the top as a protective mom. I like the story of the ketchup…when we lived in Ecuador I took all food to parties for my kids (homemade icecream, cake) after way too many problems with hepatitis, food poisoning,etc. and, after being mocked as a nervous nelly, another mother let her kid rob my son’s icecream. Both mother in child were almost eviscerated by my mamma bear claws! I like the idea that Switters has of going to the cafeteria to try to get your money’s worth but don’t push it if she completely freaks…she also could just take a sibling over to the cafeteria if the issue is showing up with the entire family focuses too much attention on her.</p>

<p>My S after the euphoric launch has hit some bumps…apparently he has broken up with GF? but it was told to me as sort of an afterthought because he is really down about his sculpture class…did not do too well on last assignment and can’t imagine doing any better, working any harder, etc. I asked him if he understood why the teacher did not like his work…he said yes but was unable to articulate what that was. He has my sympathy but I figure success in art is going to be at least somewhat subjective so he better get used to outcomes being to some extent in the hands of someone else. He won’t talk about GF issue but says it was more her idea than his. I will believe it if it stays that way after thanksgiving…may just be the distance thing. On the good side it seemed that the problems in sculpture class were far more important to him than the gf but on the other side he just sounds soooo sad. My immediate response…G-Mom…was to send out a major care package! ha ha</p>

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<p>Gmom, you’ve got some tough kids there, no wonder you guard your bottle of ketchup. People don’t realize that when one bite of the wrong food can poison your kid, the parents tend to get a bit crazy. </p>

<p>My youngest, D3, has a lot of food allergies and has had some bad run ins with tree nuts. At one, a catered event, I was told by a parent that that “of course you can’t expect us to know all the ingredients in everything because it’s catered”. I wanted to say, “Idiot! you paid for that food, you have every right to ask for a list of ingredients!” The same people handed D3 a pecan studded cookie the next day. I realized that I had to be louder, but it doesn’t come naturally to me. After that, when D3 would go on a field trip, I would call the hosting place in advance and make sure they knew about her food allergies. I think the health forms you send it aren’t really read, they’re just counted. </p>

<p>Does your MICA girl like salad? I think they have a salad bar in the cafeteria she could visit. If she gets over the hump of getting to the cafeteria once or twice, it should become an easier and faster part of her day.</p>

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<p>B&D - MCAD has great small cafeteria type thing, guy who runs it has been there FOREVER and is really good. I could see him making special meal for G-mom’s D. During campus tours, we ate in a couple cafeterias, some really good, one was HORRIBLE - D’s friend wouldn’t even consider that school after that meal!</p>

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<p>Not on our list, but Goucher college has good food. The largest organic farm in Maryland supplies their produce. Maybe the MICA kids can take a class there some day and mooch off the cafeteria.</p>

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<p>Dang that MICA girl is peculiar. I had some free time yesterday and thought I was being ‘helpful’ (FAMMoM, you’ll get a good laugh out of this) and found that Safeway has a grocery delivery service that works in the MICA area. So, with my head full of thoughts of my-poor-starving-baby-who-is-too-intimidated-to-go-to-the-dining-hall-and-has no more-cereal-left, i filled an online shopping cart with grapes, eggs, milk, bananas, tortillas, cheese – and even some things that she has specifically requested like parmesan cheese and pasta sauce and pepperoni. Then I thought, before I go ahead and do this, I’ll ask her if that’s what she wants, and texted her.</p>

<p>Jeez. No, she says, she has never ‘seen anybody else’ have groceries delivered to the gatehouse and she doesn’t know when she’ll be around to accept it. I text her back that I can have it delivered between 11 and 1 today, and she could surely be around to get the groceries… but, she says again, ‘nobody does this’. I try to point out that well, everybody else (including the celiac room mate) go to the dining hall – so she’s already doing things that ‘nobody else is doing’… She continues to resist. I ask her why its better for me to drive down there with groceries (it costs a heck of a lot more for me to do that than the $12.95 delivery charge from Safeway – though Safeway of course doesn’t have the specialty gluten free foods – like muffins and bread)… and she gets exasperated and has no answer for that. I point out that I’ll still come and bring the gf goodies, but that if we did this grocery delivery thing that she would have those things she’s missing (milk, coffee creamer, fruit) much sooner. </p>

<p>So I give up (and FAMMoM, I’ve been keeping your wise comments in mind throughout this whole exchange… but really, she’s not logical at all, so you can’t really have a rational discussion with her). I tell her, ok, fine we don’t have to do this. She can keep this in mind for some point in the future. She asks if I’m still going to come for a visit, and I tell her of course. She thinks I’m mad (except that I’m not) and I tell her no, I’m not mad. It’s her decision and if she doesn’t want to have groceries delivered we don’t have to do that. I just thought it was a convenient solution (to something that apparently only I see as a problem). A few minutes later she texts me again about how she is ‘so frustrated that I take it personally whenever she doesn’t agree with one of my suggestions’… I just don’t understand this part at all. I wasn’t even a little bit upset about her not wanting the groceries. It’s in the same category as her wanting the scripts and to fill the prescriptions herself (in my view, which I didn’t say, I think she’s a little foolish because I would have ended up paying for the prescriptions or the grocery delivery myself… but whatever). I texted her back again that I’m not mad or upset at all, it’s her life… it’s her issue, it’s her problem. I was just trying to be ‘helpful’ (but FAMMoM will point out that in the MICA girl’s warped teenage view, I was too ‘controlling’). But she’s mad at me because she thinks I’m upset by this. </p>

<p>Even though I’m not. Go figure.</p>

<p>Greewitch: salad bars are tough for celiacs because of the rampant cross contamination you get with hordes of people using and reusing utensils and having gluten ingredients close to other non-gluten ingredients (croutons, pasta salad, chinese noodles, etc). It is a matter of balancing risk vs. benefit. There will be times when it’s not an issue… and other times that you won’t know that the waitperson just fished a crouton out of the vat of salad dressing. MICA girl, fortunately or unfortunately (depending on how you look at it), doesn’t get symptoms if she accidently ingests gluten (though roomie does and her Dad and Manga girl are wickedly sensitive) – but the damage to the lining of the small intestine and the inflammatory response still occur, even if you don’t ‘feel’ symptoms. Over a long while of low grade gluten exposure (even a crumb – anything over 20 parts per milliion) there is a risk of developing other autoimmune conditions like diabetes or lupus or RA – or even cancer. While there’s no immediate threat to life, as in a severe allergy, there are nasty long term consequences that are best avoided.</p>

<p>FAMMoM – is there a Safeway or Peapod around where skinny-S is? Check out the delivery service.</p>