<p>I have been reading about how everyone misses their kiddies and I feel a touch weird. I actually looked forward to just having the two of us in the house and I look forward to candlelight dinners for two. I dream of the uses I have for their bedrooms - a second study, a hobby and sewing room. </p>
<p>What are your plans for yourself after your kids are gone ?</p>
<p>I’m conflicted. S2 is driving me nutty, but I know I’ll miss him like crazy and be lonely when he (my youngest) flies the nest.</p>
<p>Plans? Well, I want to clean out his room. No, this is not just a one weekend job, trust me. Also, when the room was D’s, she painted the walls red. yuck. That has to go. </p>
<p>For a long time, I’ve had the dream to be able to offer hospitality to people who are in our city for cancer treatment. Reading LatetoSchool’s thread has rekindled that desire. So, I want to get that bedroom fixed up so we can get started with that. I just have a feeling that a red bedroom would not be the most relaxing environment for a cancer patient or his/her family!</p>
<p>I have lined up a position teaching a chemistry class once a week to home schooled students, so I’m excited about that.</p>
<p>I need to step up my involvement in our family business too, to help H out more.</p>
<p>As a SAHM who home schooled her kids, my time was already freed up a lot this year when S2 started taking all his classes dual-credit at a cc and got his driver’s license. I have enjoyed attending the ladies’ Bible study group at my church and inadvertently fell into a “friend ministry” with 2 different ladies who really needed a friend with some available time. Since I didn’t go looking for that, I have no idea if the future will hold similar things or if something entirely new will crop up!</p>
<p>Of course, if I keep spending so much time on CC, I won’t get anything done!!</p>
<p>To answer your question, “No”. The girls are having a sisters’ night out, so H and I had a parody of a candlelight dinner, and now he is snorring on the couch next to me. H is a sweetheart, but I’d rather have a bunch of bubbly girls around so he would not snore so much. The biggest perk when yD goes away, however, would be our future vacations in HI on the cheap in off-season months.</p>
<p>Hmmm, timely, you just gave me an idea - I can tutor kids in chemistry and biology!</p>
<p>No, I’m not looking forward to it. But I’m not dreading it, either. I guess I’m a live-in-the-moment kind of person. Or try to be. I’ve had an empty nest this year for the first time, and I had been dreading it. But it went much better than I expected. I went back to teaching piano, picked up and went with H to Germany for 2 weeks, flew up to DC for a week, went to NYC twice. </p>
<p>D is home now for most of the summer. S2 will be home for 2 weeks in June, and perhaps another few days at the end of summer. It makes me sad that S1 will (probably) never live here again, and it’s doubtful that S2 or D will, either. But that is balanced by how incredibly proud I am of each of them, and excited to see what they are becoming.</p>
<p>I was sad when they quit being babies, when they quit being 4 (my favorite age of all!), when they finished elementary school… sad for something I was losing, but also happy for where they were headed. Over the years, I’ve come to realize in many ways that “the best is yet to come.” This feels similar.</p>
<p>I do not expect to be sad. With two boys, I don’t do much with them anyway. H plays with S1 a lot when he is home (golf, runs, lifts weights, watches sports on TV, etc.), but S2 doesn’t want to hang out with us and tends to be argumentative (massive understatement here). </p>
<p>S2 doesn’t want us to ask him any questions about (1) homework / tests / high school in general, (2) friends, (3) job, (4) football/work outs, (5) girls, or (6) most especially college, and then complains that H talks to S1 all the time and just ignores him! Actually, we don’t ignore him, we just have a failure to communicate. Me: how’s the job hunt going? S2: Don’t worry about it. Me: X@#$%.</p>
<p>I wasn’t just looking forward to my daughter leaving, I was absolutely thrilled when she left. We had a very adversarial summer before her departure for college - she picked apart everything that I said or did. My task was to better learn to hold back and not to jump down her throat every time she was snarky. I know that it was part of her getting ready to go. At the time I was hopeful that once she got to the next stage of her life our relationship would settle down…and it did.</p>
<p>I told my friends that God gives you the senior year so that you’ll be glad when they’re gone. With the rapid shifts between “leave me alone already I’m a legal adult now” and “tell me what to do I can’t make up my mind” -and the world revolves around them and all their senior year stuff and drama- it can drive you crazy. It is to let you appreciate the quiet and time for yourself when they are off. </p>
<p>DD told me she was watched the baby birds learn to fly last week. They did little short flights to and from the nest while mom watched. One little bird landed on a branch that was not strong enough to hold it and the branch bent. The bird could not figure out how to get off it while the branch swayed until it just let go. She said mom sat on her perch and chirped at it. </p>
<p>Sounded really familiar.</p>
<p>There are 238 views to this thread but only 6 replies, one reply was negative and the majority are ambivalent. So I guess I must be a little strange. I was so happy to have the son leave for college, part of it was that I am happy he was on his way to adulthood, or so I thought. Part of it was that I was ready to let him go, like some previous posters we fought a lot during his senior year and I had enough of him. When d left I find I miss her more, but by that time her brother already came back and was staying with us so I never had an empty nest. </p>
<p>For this past year, both kids stayed home and I traveled away for a few months this year and it feels good to get away from them ! I always feel that child rearing was an interlude in my life, and when they grow up and go away I can be free to pursue/resume my life’s goals. Maybe that’s why I look forward to it.</p>
<p>Here’s one for looking forward to it. Love my kids, but I can’t wait to see them on their own and entering that next phase. I say this is the most loving affectionate way - but kids are a by-product of marriage so I’m looking forward to the time when my husband and I can come and go and do what we want without having to think about the kids vacation schedules, ortho and dentist schedules, sports events or where they are or what they are doing…which will amount to a good nights sleep to which is rare these days. I’ve got a way to go before 3 is out of the house though so can’t think about it for awhile and 3 is looking forward to his turn as an only - too bad for 2 who never gets to be an “only” maybe that’s why #2s are the way they are. It’s been a great journey so far, but really, isn’t our job to raise them and set them off to adulthood?</p>
<p>I was very glad to see my D leave, because she was so difficult to get along with. Later it turned out that she was suffering from serious emotional problems, and I am sure that was the reason. Things are much better now.</p>
<p>I am ambivalent about my S who will be leaving this fall to a college across the country. On the one hand, he is great company and I will miss him tremendously. However, I am thrilled that he will be going exactly where he wants to go and doing exactly what he wants to do in college.</p>
<p>My D comes home most weekends, so I can’t fully change that room’s purpose. We did however, put a computer/printer and desk in there so when she is not home, we get full use of the room. We won’t change S’s room at all, since it is in the attic remodel, and I don’t need to be traipsing up and down the stairs all of the time.</p>
<p>My H and I can hardly think ahead to when my S will be gone and we will be alone during the week. We are looking forward to being able to travel during the school seasons. I am sure that we will have more time and inclination to do more fun stuff, such as checking out the local folk music scene more and perhaps taking up our musical instruments again. We can do more hiking in local natural areas, and we’ll have time to fix up house problems that we have let go over the very busy high school years.</p>
<p>Our dinners will be different! I look forward to cooking for just the two of us, partly because H and I like so many more foods than our kids do.</p>
<p>Mixed emotions here. DS just graduated from college and will move out for good this week. No more winter break, spring break, extended vacations here. I’ll miss him, a LOT, but do look forward to visiting him in his cool new city and getting his room back for other purposes. (Guest room, office…) We’ll know he’s REALLY gone when he buys a bookcase for his new digs and empties the one here.</p>
<p>When D was accepted to dream school (and we actually got a great FA package so we could afford it), I was so happy and proud of her that I really and truly thought I would not miss her at all. And, last summer, before she left, it was awful, lots of arguing and stress-related fighting as many have similarly reported. So, I was so looking forward to her being gone. </p>
<p>That’s why my tears at drop off last year were a real surprise to me. And each time she went back to school after her vacations, more tears. They only lasted a little while though, and I began to realize that the tears were because it was a physical tearing away of a biological piece of me. Sounds too melodramatic… After the hour or two that it took to get it out of my system, I always felt better and we went on our merry way. But I learned the true meaning of the word ambivalent. I felt two things at once all year. </p>
<p>Now that she is home for the summer, it is really great to have her here. She has grown tremendously and is an absolute pleasure. And I know (or I think, anyway) that when it is time for her to return to school in September, I will not be so sad-happy. I think I will be able to tip the balance and make it a lot more happy-sad. It does take time, though. So, don’t be surprised if your emotions when you are actually living through the transition are a little different than what you are anticipating.</p>
<p>I adjusted really well when S1 left three years ago. I think I’ll be fine when S2 goes in Aug. During each of their senior yrs. in h.s. they spent very little time at home, rarely had meals with us, had no desire to go anywhere with us basically. So DH and I are pretty used to being home alone. We’ll still have the dog,lol. I am really glad high sch. is almost over…2 weeks til grad. Woohooo!</p>
<p>DS will be headed off in August to a school approximately 2 hours away. I think we’re all ready for him to be on his own (or as much as our children can be while they’re off at college). I agree - as parents we’re given senior year so we’re glad to see them off! DD will be at home, starting her senior year- I’m already not looking forward to her leaving!</p>
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<p>So true. I once heard the same was true of the “terrible two’s”. A mother and her baby are so close that it takes that awful year to break the bond…or at least to stretch it a bit.</p>
<p>One thing I keep reminding myself is that college kids are home for 3 months in the summer and another month at Christmas. So really, they are still home for 1/3 of the year! Of course, over time they pick up study abroad, summer school classes on campus, or whatever, but most of the time the breaking away is blessedly gradual.</p>
<p>Shhhh . . . </p>
<p>Yes, I am ready for our house to have fewer bodies - less laundry, less grocery shopping, less complexity. And DH and I are definitely looking forward to being empty nesters in four years when D2 heads to college. Love our kids but also love alone time with DH and look forward to having it back.</p>
<p>I hate when all my boys are home…</p>
<p>They are loud and fun and silly and very messy and stay up too late and and not very considerate “houseguests” and get on my last nerve…</p>
<p>All three just got home from a MLB baseball game with Dad. A GREAT time was had by all. How many times will that happen as they move on with their lives?</p>
<p>So, I hope they continue to coordinate their visits home so that they can all be together, drive me nuts with their “three boy” energy, make me laugh with their inside-joke silliness, and then go back to their lives and let me clean up the mess.</p>
<p>How’s that for ambivalence?</p>
<p>Mom2three - from momofthreeboys…yup, yup, and yup. Plus they can eat a week’s worth of groceries in 2 days flat and six size 11 shoes lying around the house, messy bathrooms, smelly sports laundry and the scent of what the hottest body spray is - Ambiance and Ambivalence. The bright side is boys love their mothers just watch the pro football players on TV…do they say “hi dad” nope they say “hi mom”.</p>
<p>I like it when my kids are home, but there’s a certain tension because I can feel their need to leave and because they don’t fit into the household all that well as part-time residents. This isn’t the main place in their lives anymore, and household routines have to change every time they arrive and depart.</p>
<p>My son just graduated from a nearby university and will soon be going to graduate school on the other side of the country. I will miss him, but he needs this chance to be truly on his own, year-round, in a new place. </p>
<p>My daughter just finished her freshman year at a college several hours from home. Although she has a good internship in our local area this summer, and some of her friends from high school are at home, she can’t wait to get back to her campus. It’s where she belongs now. </p>
<p>So although I enjoy it when they’re here, I also look forward to them leaving – more for their sake than mine.</p>
<p>Have you seen this? One of my very, VERY favorites…
[YouTube</a> - mothers day](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKXFqGUGdTk]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKXFqGUGdTk)</p>