<p>I so hope that you and your daughter are granted the wonderful last few weeks that you are hoping for! I remember my son’s last summer before college as being pretty pleasant, but he did spend a good amount of time with friends since he was going out of state to school. </p>
<p>If you can, plan some fun times with just your daughter and you. I love to go to lunch with various ones of my kids alone, and it’s an indulgence we’ve been sharing this summer quite a bit. </p>
<p>This is a difficult and transitional time for both kids and parents, so it’s a good time to exercise any patience you may still have after five kids!! :D</p>
<p>Only on CC could a thread about hugs morph into a shaggy dog thread.<br>
Ellemenope: sounds like you been given a practice empty nest run. Don’t sit around and ----m–ope, but practice being an EN. And don’t think your dog won’t need a college fund; soon enough no self-respecting dog will be able to go around without an education.</p>
<p>berurah, thanks for this thread. {(hug)}to MOWC and good luck with your knee surgery. I could use a hug today 'cause I had to take S2 in to the oral surgeon for extraction of 3 wisdom teeth. He got sick from the anesthesia on the car ride home. Luckily, my messy car had an empty snack bag I could hand him! Every time I clean my car or purse I find myself without the essentials of squashed Pepto Bismol tablets or hunks of paper towel, so I try to avoid cleaning them out!</p>
<p>As far as dog stories, any other dachshund owners? Ours is sweet, cuddy, and absolutely unabashed at using the family room rug when it’s raining, cold, or something other than his version of the ideal weather outside.</p>
<p>mstee - I can sympathize by proxy about the wild boy thing. I’m the oldest of four…two girls and two boys. My sis and I are a bit older than the younger brothers… and of course we were raised to be mature and dependable young ladies. But then those boys came along…and my baby brothers really did put my parents through it. We grew up in a small town, where the local police were very friendly with my father…which was a very good thing. Get the picture?..lol! (It was the '70s so we aren’t talking drugs…but pretty much anything else…oh boy yes…)</p>
<p>And guess what 2mch? One of our family dogs was…yes a dachsund! She was such a gooood dog, never very well housebroken…but we loved her. (Someone poisoned her along with several other neighborhood dogs, so I get a little sentimental when I think of her…)</p>
<p>Oh, I can <em>SO</em> relate to your experience with taking your son in for wisdom teeth extraction! {MANY HUGS} to both of you! I hope that he makes a full recovery with no complications…and FASSSSSSST!</p>
<p>Last summer, we did the two-for-one dealio. I took both my oldest S and my oldest D in for wisdom teeth extraction at the same time! I’m glad we did it that way–I would NOT have wanted to go through that twice closely together. Like your son, my son became sick from the anesthesia afterward.</p>
<p>I will say that the recoveries went quite well for my kids, and I was SUPER lucky in that S’s gf and D’s bf basically took over the constant attending part. My job was to organize and pick up supplies and meds and such.</p>
<p>I so hope that everything goes as smoothly as possible for your son. I’ll be thinking about you!</p>
<p>THANKS for this thread, berurah! You have no idea how timely…
I do indeed need hugs. My 15yo rising HS junior ds was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease last week, and was started on a purely elemental diet (liquid supplements and water only) and feeding tube at night for the rest of the summer, then will be starting shots of a rough medication.</p>
<p>He is a trooper, and just HATING the “sick kid” label he feels he has, despite our trying to keep this light and easy. Since sports has been his passion, it’s a particular blow since he has been too ill to keep up.</p>
<p>But we are an optomistic lot, and have so much else to be thankful for (our “it could always be worse” mentality!), that he’ll be fine with one day at a time.</p>
<p>The good news is- some of you might recall my “reluctant reader s” thread a long time ago, and I got fantastic advice about books that he now devours!
So thanks to many of you for all of that- it has come in so handy now!!</p>
<p>thanks again, berurah- I feel better already , {{{hugs to you}}}</p>
<p>This posts on this thread are almost too weird to comment on. BTW, the references to Kansas and to dogs with gold medals diving into the pool and narcissism and well-behaved dogs and perfect kids are more transparent than you might think.</p>
<p>I’m taking a break from CC for a while. Catch ya later.</p>
<p>berurah - My son will have teeth extracted in two weeks and they have given us the option of IV sedation or general anesthesia. He does tend to get easily nauseated, as do I, and I’m not sure what to do. Did yours have general and did they run phenergan or zofran for nausea? </p>
<p>galway…I am so sorry to hear about your son. I can completely understand trying to keep something serious ‘light and easy’. Boy do I ever.</p>
<p>My heart goes out to your son for all that he has been through with his recent Crohn’s diagnosis. I can’t even imagine the disruption to his life with the elemental diet and the feeding tube, not to mention his having his sports schedule interrupted. That would challenge the most optimistic of souls.</p>
<p>My sons, too, are very sports-minded, and I shudder to think of how they would feel if they were in your son’s shoes.</p>
<p>My thoughts and prayers will be with your son and your entire family as you work to improve his condition and regain some sort of sense of normalcy. </p>
<p>Congrats on the improvement in your reluctant reader!! I’ve been in the same process…trying to find the perfect material for my own reluctant ones. We’ve definitely made some strides this summer, and yes, I DO find it thrilling.</p>
<p>galwaymom–{hugs} and best wishes for your son. One of my college roomates had a son with Crohn’s, who managed to deal with it during college and graduated from NYU. However, I know it was a challenge. I think he is pursuing a career in alternative therapy.</p>
<p>Thanks for your good wishes berurah. Unfortunately, S2 does not have a girlfriend to take over!! However, in between sleeping and waking up feeling a bit sick and disoriented, he is being very sweet and thanking me for taking care of him. The pain hasn’t kicked in yet.</p>
<p>I was reading the doggie posts to my H last night, starting with Ellemenope’s, and we were laughing our heads off!! I can totally relate, Ellemenope, because all my kids have been gone for a while now and I’ve been feeling blue. </p>
<p>We have two pooches ourselves, an old faithful golden retriever male and a really, really poofy 18 month female, a 2005 Christmas present to my youngest D from Santa–I mean, grandpa!) The poofy one thinks she’s Cujo too…When my sister brought her bulldog over, the poofy one almost got herself killed (after starting a fight). But my two pooches are quite a team and they’ve been up to their share of mischief this summer…I think they’re mad because the kids are gone and they’re letting us know it!</p>
<p>So…although I am also told I am a bad hugger (by my H and others), I am really working on it!</p>
<p>{{{HUGS}}} to MOWC for a successful surgery, to galwaymom and her wonderful son, to jym for everything she’s had to deal with including the death of her beloved doggie, to 2mch2sn’s S, and to all of us with prickly kids and kids who are traveling!</p>
<p>And a very Happy Birthday to Doubleday! May it be filled with lots of {{{{hugs}}}}!</p>
<p>omg curiousmother…I was doing the same thing with ldgirl…reading the posts out loud that is. It was hysterical…she and I were howling. What is it about our pets that they can crack us up, make a bad day good and yes, break our hearts?? Btw…I’ve decided the NEXT little Cujo WILL have poofy dog hair. I’m through dealing with canine jealousy over hair…lol!</p>
<p>And I’ll work on the hugging with you. My little pinky doesn’t like the bracket keys on the keyboard though. But the sentiment is there and I’m a good irl hugger.</p>
<p>Btw…in one of my prior posts, it occurs to me I made my brothers sound reeeally bad. They were. No JK! They WERE a challenge, extremely mischievous, drove their trucks and dirtbikes where trucks and dirtbikes weren’t meant to go (the police incidents), brilliantly smart but still managed to make the Calculus teacher cry (a grown man), didn’t understand the concept of ‘curfew’, set a spent cornfield on fire with bottle rockets (no wait, that was my husband), DID imbibe illegally (but it’s was a semi-dry county, so that basically meant scoring Communion wine), etc…</p>
<p>But now they are wonderful grown men in whom God obviously saw favor, rewarding them both with daughters and no sons… </p>
<p>I have had three dogs as an adult (in succession – I’m a serial monocaninist), all acquired in a not quite usual way. </p>
<p>The first, a mutt black Lab, belonged to the people from whom we bought our first house. They simply left her there when they moved out (into the wife’s father’s much-becatted house temporarily), and only told us that they had done that the day before closing. They lied and said she was an outdoors dog; we agreed to let her stay for a few weeks while they looked for a house. The “outdoors dog” stuff lasted one night; we had her for 10-1/2 years. When we sold the house, she came with us, and we stopped joking about how she “ran with the land.”</p>
<p>Our second dog was the offspring of my wife’s then-boss’s two highly pedigreed Labs. She was born on New Year’s Eve. My wife was about to give notice (she had left the job by the time the puppy was old enough to come home with us), but we agreed to take a puppy anyway. She was the runt, but turned out to be fashion-model beautiful and fast as the wind. Sadly, she got Lyme disease and then kidney failure as a consequence, and died just a few weeks after her fifth birthday.</p>
<p>Our current dog is a Shepherd-Rottweiler-ish mutt that we picked up visiting a college with our daughter. Quite the souvenir, given that D didn’t even apply to that college. What a wonderful dog – I love her to pieces!</p>
<p>Thank you all for the support- had you not started this thread, berurah, I don’t think I would have posted about it! </p>
<p>We already are thinking differently about my ds’s college list than we had prior to his illness, so I’m sure I’ll be looking for input on this as his junior year progresses with this nasty disease. At this point, we’re hoping just to get him feeling well enough for a very challenging junior year courseload that had included college classes- we will see. He doesn’t get stressed easily, luckily.</p>
<p>On a lighter note, ldmom- isn’t it a shame that those mischeivous bros. of yours didn’t get the payback of mischeivous sons themselves? ;)</p>
<p>galway…actually, I’m kinda kicking myself. One brother did have a son who died as a very young child (car accident). I feel terrible for how I worded that last sentence and it’s too late to change it. :(</p>
<p>But yes I did mean to say take heart and be optimistic…those adventuresome, mischievous boys do turn into the best of men!! And I will be thinking of you and your family…I know how difficult it can be when a loved has a serious illness. You wish you could assume the burden for them.</p>
<p>galway mom, your son is in my prayers. My good friend’s son has Crohn’s. He is out of college now, is a pilot and air traffic controller (talk about a stressful job!).<br>
We’re all thinking of him, best wishes! {HUGS} for galway’s son.</p>
<p>I’ve never done a {hug} before- that was my first! Gee whiz, {hugs} feel pretty good, we should all {hug} more often!</p>
<p>I need a hug now…
H and I went out to a nice dinner and just watched “Pans Labyrinth” on pay per view. I thought it was going to be a nice little fairy tale, now I’m anticipating nightmares all night!</p>
<p>I think I’ll go have a glass of wine and try to forget some of the stuff I just saw.</p>
<p>Awww, {doubleplay}, I’m sorry that the movie wasn’t what you expected! There are some <em>really</em> grotesque movies out there…have you seen any of the “Saw” movies that are all the rage with the college crowd? BLECH.</p>
<p>Other than the movie, though, it sounds like you had a nice evening with your hubster. We had a romantic late-night dinner ourselves, but my day isn’t done. I’m the official HP book retriever for tonight! My D has been avoiding all crowds and most media for the past week for fear of a spoiler <em>rofl</em>. So, in an hour, I’m off to the store… :)</p>
<p>Hope you don’t have any nightmares tonight!</p>
<p>Oh Doubleplay! I have to share my Pans Labyrinth experience. I was looking for a movie to go to with my husband. We go out, just the two of us, very rarely, but this was one of those opportunities. So I asked my daughter (the 17 year old) what movie to see. I told her I didn’t want to see anything depressing, and esp. no movies with killing in it. She suggested Pan’s labyrinth. It’s really good. I’d really like it, she said. And no, there is no violence. And I bought it hook line and sinker, didn’t read the reviews, just went on her recommendation. And I sat there watching it in the theatre feeling horrified and doing a slow burn at the same time. I asked her afterward why the heck she told me that. She said, so sweetly, well it is a good movie, and I thought you should see it, and I knew you wouldn’t go see it if I had told you about the murders. . .GRRRRH. </p>
<p>It was kind of funny though, how she pulled that off. And it was a good movie. But so disturbing.</p>
But then those boys came along…and my baby brothers really did put my parents through it. We grew up in a small town, where the local police were very friendly with my father…which was a very good thing. Get the picture?..lol! (It was the '70s so we aren’t talking drugs…but pretty much anything else…oh boy yes…)</p>
And I will be thinking of you and your family…I know how difficult it can be when a loved has a serious illness. You wish you could assume the burden for them.</p>