<p>Glad you finally made contact. As a parent, tis your privilege to be concerned. </p>
<p>Now, that being said, the behavior on the part of EnsembleMom continues to be unprofessional. And my advice to my kid would be when it’s over to tell her exactly how unprofessionally this “gig” was handled. </p>
<p>Burn no bridges, but be professional in telling her exactly (and how many times) she dropped the ball. An artist manager/agent she is not. I suggest she not quit her day job.</p>
<p>Things are looking WAY UP for you, Binx…how do you spell RELIEF? I’m glad he finally called you. That would have driven me bonkers, I must admit. However, in your case, your son seems to not always call and so that was the norm for him, and not indicative of a problem. For me, I could not go by that “method”! When my kids travel, we have lined it up for them to call upon arrival or at whatever junctures we agree to in advance. And they do. I would be a nervous wreck without knowing otherwise. It doesn’t work for me to use the method that “no news is good news” when it comes to their traveling far away. My reason is that it could be that no news IS good news and that they will only call if there is a problem but truthfully, if there IS a problem, that also might result in NO call and so the upshot is that “no call” could be interpretted either way. That is why I like the agreement that they WILL call to alleviate my anxiety and sense of wondering what happened. This rule is never argued as it has been a given for a long time. In fact, just today, my oldest daughter (who is 20 and a rising college senior) lined up with me the exact junctures she has to call me in her many travels to many countries in this coming week (various transportation arrivals to different countries, traveling alone). She has also provided me with a long list of every plane and train she will take this summer and phone numbers of people she is meeting in various locations and countries, in case I don’t hear something, I have someone to call. She has traveled alone before in foreign lands…last summer and also last fall, and also drove two summers ago 6000 miles to Alaska. I trust her implicitly to call me as agreed. I just would be too anxious to not know if she arrived where she was headed and so forth. I felt anxious for you with your son but part of me also felt that since he didn’t have a firm agreement to call you, that he was likely just fine. I also think that the ensemble mom has not kept their end of the bargain at all. Live and learn. I am sure your son is having quite a neat adventure. I am also sure that you will feel some relief when he arrives in CA. He is OK but you have had to endure too much anxiety with these arrangements and lack of contact or way to contact your son. My D will have a cell in her foreign country. I couldn’t do this any other way. At least now your son is with a group. My D has traveled alone quite a bit and will be doing so again this summer, as well as living on her own in a foreign city not associated with any sort of educational program, etc. I’m OK with it, but just saying that it is different than study abroad or a travel trip with others. This is also not new for me. My D also knows I will be a nervous wreck if she doesn’t call when she arrives at each destination and so she is good about doing so. </p>
<p>While this is YOUR thread, I did share the other day about the anxiety-ridden moment that befell my D this week with her foreign travel plans, a last minute hitch of a large magnitude, to show that us moms are not alone in still having to worry on behalf of our children, no matter how old they get. Some of you have asked for a follow up and so I thought I would give it. </p>
<p>If you recall, I mentioned that every aspect of her summer plans are in place and she leaves for Paris tomorrow. A lot of arrangements and paper work have been involved, all of which she has taken care of independently. She had an apt. lined up in Paris which she found on Craigslist and has had numerous correspondence with the person she is subletting from. It is all on the up and up. She sent a month’s rent by wiring the money and had a check made up in Euros to hand him upon arrival for the balance of summer rent and the security deposit. It has been all set for a while. He e mailed her very apologetically on Sunday that the apartment building had an explosion and was damaged and residents were evacuated and that she would be unable to occupy it this summer. He has even offered to show her this when she gets to France. He is wiring back her deposit and she also has had to get her Euro check made out to his name dissolved. </p>
<p>You would have to know my D, but she is a VERY calm person and VERY easygoing. She didn’t act flustered or upset but I knew this was extremely troublesome and negative because she had only a few days left before departure and she knew how long it took to line up all the paperwork and monies for a rental (she even had to get a statement about her rental for her visa). She didn’t have a lot of hope. She knew she could not get any Euro check made up to anyone before leaving here (getting these things takes a while in our rural area). She ordered additional Euros to take thinking she might have to find and pay for an apartment in cash once she got there though both she and we were really hoping it would not come to her leaving the states without something lined up, even though the odds of doing so in a few days were not that great. </p>
<p>We scoured the listings online and she began to email and call them. I forgot to say that while she is flying to Paris now, she is planning to travel the first week and really doesn’t need to move into an apartment for about 6-7 days, a few days before her internship commences. However, her travel trips are commencing within hours of her arrival in Paris and she even has plane and train tickets for these lined up, never thinking anything like this would ever come up at the last minute. </p>
<p>But originally when she was searching for an apt. in Paris a couple of months ago, she was deciding between the one she found on Craiglist (a really NICE apartment with everything…a true apt., not a studio…but well underpriced for how nice it is…saw pictures…she talked to current subletter to verify as well) and another option which was that she knows two Brown students who have been studying at the Sorbonne for the spring semester and they were renting studio apartments which they had gotten through Brown and these cost the same as the apt. she found on Craigslist. These Brown students were planning to leave around the time my D needs an apt. and they felt that their studios likely would be available (not positive though). My D opted to take the much larger apt. she got on Craiglist for the same monthly rental. The Brown kids’ apartments are actually quite near where she is going to work on the Champs Elysee, but the larger apartment and what it offered won out at the time and she never contacted the landlord of the Brown students. </p>
<p>So, when this news of the explosion developed, she contacted the Brown students in Paris to get their landlady’s contact information. But the landlady was on a trip to Italy…what poor timing! My D left her voice mails. Monday morning, just 24 hours after this last minute fiasco developed, and in the midst of my D frantically emailing and calling any Paris listings we could find, the landlady of the Brown students called here and said that yes, she could most definitely take the studio that one of the Brown students is vacating the day before my D needs it after her travels this week and she even speaks English (is British…my D communicated in French many times with her previous landlord) and didn’t require a security deposit as she has been very pleased with the previous Brown students as this is her first year renting to the college’s students. My D wired her the money and all of it is set. In some ways, this place is even a little more piece of mind for me (not that I wasn’t happy with the prior arrangement which was lovely) because if for some reason I could not contact my D, there is someone to reach in her building who knows her…the landlady, unlike her other arrangement. Also, for her first 12 days, her friend from Brown will still be in the building and can introduce her to some people in Paris and the neighborhood. </p>
<p>My D has a 28 hour trip planned starting tomorrow (with no time in a bed). There is a 3 1/2 hour drive to Boston. An overnight plane to Paris. A train into the city. A meeting up with her friend from Brown at the metro and be taken to her apartment building. This friend had borrowed my D’s French cell phone all semester (my D worked in Southern France last summer and so owns a French cell) and she will go pick up her cell and call me and leave a bunch of her luggage with the landlady. Then she is off on a train right away to meet a French friend in Southwestern France (whom she worked with last summer) and after that five hour train ride, will get in her car and drive three hours to Spain for the weekend to meet another friend! My D is calling at each arrival. However, her French cell cannot make calls out from countries other than France, but I can call her when she is outside of France (such arrangements!). Then she is flying to Edinburgh, Scotland to meet a friend who graduated from Brown, and then flies to Paris, moves into her apartment, and a few days later, starts her job. She has plans to travel on some weekends to Prague, Frankfurt, and Switzerland, to visit friends. My life should only be as exciting as my kids’ lives. </p>
<p>Things worked out as we kept telling her they would even though there was one day of a negative unforeseen event that derailed some plans. She and we are thankful that the gas explosion was not while she was living in the apartment. She also would have been out of luck with a place to live at that point, besides the danger involved. I hope this is the only setback. All her other travels have gone smoothly and I will be positive and hope for the best.</p>
<p>Glad to hear that you heard from him. It is frustrating that he didn’t call on arrival since he knew you would worry. I think it is a boy thing.
Last year my son at 16 went on a trip that involved 2 flights with a terminal change plus a shuttle to a small town in Wyoming. The arrival time came and went and I still had not heard from him 4 hours after he should have arrived. He did not have a cell phone. I finally called the hostel he was staying at that night and they assured me he had checked in and would put a note on his door. He called late that evening. he had met some kids on his trip and just forgot to call. He was out 30 days in the wilderness so we didn’t expect to hear from him. He arrived back at the base camp and was set to fly out the next morning. No word from him. The hostel’s phone was not working. The company he took his trip with did not have communication with the hostel. Finally they suggested I call the shuttle company. It is a tiny town. The shuttle staff person was quite kind and said he had been picked up and she even checked with the driver to confirm he had been dropped at the airport. I felt silly but relieved. He had to take 3 flights to get home. He finally called from the 3rd airport.
In contrast his sister calls so often that sometimes I don’t even pick up the phone. She would have called on arrival at the airport, again at the gate, at arrival and then again at her final destination. She also called almost daily from college. With my son I will be lucky if I hear from him once a week (and that will be if I call him)
Binx if he has any problems reaching SB PM me.</p>
<p>Glad to year that all the international travellers are accounted for…and things are perking along. Binx…I’m with you…I do think that there could have been better communication from the organizer of this trip. I’m still looking forward to hearing about it all once your son is stateside. DS arrived in Aspen last night. Both of my kids were traveling at the same time yesterday (in fact, I’m leaving in a few minutes to pick up DD from her red eye from LAX). The phone rang at about 9:15 last night. My comment “I hope it isn’t someone calling about a screwed up flight.”. It turned out it was DS calling from the plane in Denver…enroute to Aspen. He was just checking in…and wondered if he should call us when he was all checked in. We told him it was fine to wait…we all needed to get to bed. But it was good that he called (something he also doesn’t do all that often).</p>
<p>Soozie:</p>
<p>I tried to PM you a few days ago but your box was full. I wanted to tell you I read about your D’s saga–though I had no place to offer in lieu of the exploded apartment! My niece, by the way, is in her third year of architecture school (starting right after high school) but she commutes from home. But I’m happy things are looking up. Places to stay in Paris are so hard to find; I’m really glad that the landlady had a good experience with Brown students and was thus willing to rent to your D.</p>
<p>We did have an agreement that he would try to find some sort of “safe arrival” notification. I don’t know why he didn’t; all I got was a “sorry, mom.” (My older S and my D are both very good about contact. This one has always been more indepent (i.e. contrary). This is the kid that we used to joke about needing to tell him the opposite of what we wanted him to do. </p>
<p>I can lecture and complain all I want; what I can’t do is punish. What would I do? I can’t exactly forbid him to travel. We’re not paying for anything. If he got stranded, the reality is that I would do everything in my power to rescue him! (And he knows it.)</p>
<p>We talked to him frequently all last weekend, as he updated his plans over and over. He even called us while sitting on the plane to go to Korea. But once he arrived, I think two things happened – he was busy figuring out how to get to the hotel, and there was no easy way to contact us. His cell phone does not work in Korea. It works in all of Europe, but Korea uses different technology. We bought him a calling card before he left, and that is what he used when he did call, but I don’t know where he had to go to use it. I suspect that the schedule is full, with the group staying together and being filmed constantly, so breaking away to call isn’t easy. He called me at 1:30 a.m. his time.</p>
<p>I did agree that we would talk again once he was in the US, and that he should call again from Korea if there were anything we needed to know.</p>
<p>Soozie, I’m so glad there was a solution so quickly found. And it does sound like this is where she is “supposed” to be! Thanks for the update. Lots of people talk about how the kids on CC are better academically than the average college-bound kid, and I think I would add that they are all more well-traveled and adventurous, as well!</p>
<p>Thumper, hope your S has a great time in Aspen. S2 has a friend who has spent several summers there and loved it. How is your D spending her summer?</p>
<p>binx, I am glad that your son has arrived safely at long last. S3, who just completed freshman year at college, flew last week from JFK to Hong Kong to Bangkok to Kathmandu. I was a nervous wreck as he had only an hour between connections, had boarding pass for first flight only, and could not check luggage all the way through. Everything went smoothly. He arranged a position through local contacts – not an organized program – and luckily we knew someone would meet his flight. I think this is very important when kids do not speak the language or know the lay of the land. I am not sure, however, if S3 feels the same. His return flights require overnight stays in both Bangkok and Hong Kong – something else to worry about. We made him take his cell and told him to use it (and NOT lose it) only to text us when he successfully arrived in each location.</p>
<p>Thanks, guys. She is packing up and hopefully the rest will be smooth sailing. This year, with domestic travel, both of my kids had problems…one being stranded two nights alone in Dallas with nothing, another time stranded alone for the night in Jacksonville, Florida, and the other stranded one night in Philly. My younger one also had a literal last minute change on a group trip to Brazil, when their travel to Rio de Janeiro had to be cancelled due to violent uprisings and they went to a different city, and some flight mishaps while she was down there (though she was not alone that time). This mishap about having no apartment was a more substantial anxious situation but it has worked out. </p>
<p>Marite, sorry about the full PM box. It is much better to email me and I much prefer it. My PM box constantly fills up. I’d rather correspondence in my email box anyway. I bet my daughter would enjoy meeting your niece as they have something in common and also my D is very into meeting French people. She doesn’t know anyone in Paris though has friends in other parts of France since she worked in France last summer. At her job, there will be just one other young person, an intern from India, a male. And she knows some students from her college who will be in and out of Paris at various times this summer.</p>
<p>Soozie: Okay, will email my niece and find out what her summer plans are then get back to you. This niece is into modern dance. We took her to Jacob’s Pillow when she visited and she found that participants there had heard of her studio in Paris. Small world.</p>
<p>Marite, that would be cool. If she is interested in meeting an American architecture student, it would be fun. My D speaks French. My D danced her entire life prior to college too. She is very into getting to know the French people and I am sure she would welcome the opportunity to meet someone her age as she doesn’t know anyone yet.</p>
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<p>Thumpgirl arrived home at 6:30 a.m. She’ll spend the summer here working as a lifeguard at this condo development which is a second home/vacation spot for NYC folks. They give her a lot of hours and she likes the work and the people she works with. Binx…she should meet your son. DD is my “free spirit”. DS checks in.</p>
<p>No, Thumper, we need to keep them far apart. My only hope is that S2 ends up with some girl someday who will call me. :)</p>
<p>Soozie - have you had any check-in calls yet?</p>
<p>Binx, it truly is so sweet of you to ask and I wrote out my whole reply of her happenings and actually while writing it an hour ago, there was a flurry of calls across the world going on! But alas, my entire post got lost in cyberland and so I will rewrite it since you were kind to check in with me about it!</p>
<p>I have to preface this by saying that this particular daughter is MUCHO reliable and responsible. She ALWAYS calls when she reaches destinations or at agreed upon times. If there is any change to what is expected, she’ll call to let me know so that I don’t worry. This has really helped given her independent travels all over Europe in the past year and again this summer and also when she drove to Alaska. At present, my D is on a 28 hour journey door to door from Vermont to Boston to Paris to Southwestern France to Zaragosa, Spain in one very long day involving planes, trains, subways and cars. She also provided me with all travel information this summer (while working fulltime in Paris, she has plans to be in Spain, Scotland, Prague and Switzerland on mini trips) and all contact information for those she will be visiting as well. </p>
<p>I got her to Boston last night and all went smoothly for her there and I had to leave before she flew out because the flight was so late at night and I had 3 1/2 hours to drive back to Vermont. She called me on my drive to let me know she was boarding the plane. Her plan was to arrive in Paris this AM and then take a train from the airport to the city and meet up with a boy from Brown who has been studying this semester at the Sorbonne and will be there a couple of more weeks and in whose apartment building she will be living. He was meeting her at the train and then they were going by metro to the apartment where she was going to unload a lot of her luggage and computers and meet the landlady. The other purpose was that she had lent this boy her French cell phone (which she got last summer when she worked in Southern France) all semester because she never thought she’d need it as she had not originally planned to work in France this summer and so he was going to return it to her today so she’d have it for summer and also for this coming week as she is not really moving in yet and is traveling to Spain and Edinburgh meeting up with friends at each place. She was bringing with her another French cell that another Brown friend overnighted to us from DE so that the boy in Paris can use that for the next couple of weeks. But that cell had only a few minutes on it remaining. </p>
<p>She was to call me when she met the boy in the city before heading to the apartment. It turns out she called us early this AM from the airport in Paris because she was delayed and didn’t want us to worry as it would take a while to meet the boy in the city. She had gone through customs and had her luggage but the plane had sat on the runway in Boston, I think. She turned on the cell she had brought to give this boy and there was a couple of minutes left on it and so she called to tell us the delay and that she’d call when she met him in the city after the train. It took a while to get to that point and she called again. However, due to the delays, her original plan to go on the subway with him to the apartment and unload a lot of stuff and meet the landlady was not going to work or she would not have time to travel to another train station to get her train to Southwestern France (already had that reservation and had to make that train that gets in tonight to drive very late at night to Spain). So, they decided she’d give him all the extra luggage and he’d take it to the apartment and she’d not go there too since there was no more time. The hitch was that she was supposed to get her own phone back from him to use on her travels this week, let alone all summer and she was going to reimburse him for the minutes he put on it in advance. But he didn’t have the charger with him because they had planned to go by the apartment originally. So, she had to keep the phone she had with her (with only a minute left on it) so she would have a way for us to reach her in her travels as well as those whom she was meeting (and would have to get them the new number). Her call was rushed and she gave us the new number and hoped to buy some minutes. </p>
<p>She called again from the new train station where she was to board for the five hour trip. She said she could not get minutes but we’d be able to call her. She asked me to call the friend in Southern France she was meeting to give her the new number and to confirm she was making the train. I got a voice mail for the girl and left a message. Meanwhile, my D’s landlady in Paris called here. I have never spoken with her because my D makes all her own arrangements. But she called as she was concerned (being a parent of kids the same age) as my D hadn’t yet arrived at the apartment as planned. I told her what happened and that my D doesn’t have any minutes with this new phone but I knew that the boy was heading back to the apartment and would explain in person the change my D had to make today to continue with her travels. We had a lovely chat and she was very nice. It is a comforting feeling that with her new apartment arrangement, that someone is there who will know her and whom I could reach if there was a problem (which wasn’t the case with her original apt. that had the explosion). </p>
<p>Meanwhile, my D calls again boarding the train that she miraculously at the last moment found a place to buy minutes for the cell she’d be using this week of traveling. While in Spain and Scotland, she cannot call the US but she can receive calls from us (I knew that already). I had a call waiting (which turned out to be my husband checking in about this stuff) and so I told my D I would call her right back. But when I tried to do that, I got “invalid number.” Just great. But D called me back (I think we have had like ten 30 second calls this AM!) when she did get my call and it turned out that I had not quite dialed correctly because callers from here must leave off a zero in her French number. Then she had me try it again to make sure I had it right but I got a voice mail. She was going through a tunnel on the train. Then she calls to say that the voice mail I left for the girl in Southern France went to another French friend in another part of France (they all luckily know one another as they worked together last summer and so the girl put two and two together when listening to my message!) and this girl called to tell my D. It turns out that on the papers my D gave me where she typed up all this contact information for the summer, she had made a mistake and had put the wrong girl’s cell number next to the wrong name! So, we got that straightened out and she now knows the original girl did not get the message but she has now texted her as she is meeting her tonight. Phew. We got cut off many times due to tunnels. But all seems to be fine and she has a phone and we can call her. She will call when she reaches this other girl in the southern France tonight and also when she gets to Edinburgh. So far, pretty good except the hitch with the phone and not going by her apartment. She was never truly moving in for a week anyway. She has reliably called with any changes as promised to alleviate concerns. So, while I CAN get nervous, I am not very nervous right now because she has called me each step of the way to inform me of her arrivals and whereabouts or changes and new contact information. True that other things could happen when traveling alone, but that is not new for her and so I’m pretty good at this juncture. </p>
<p>Thanks for asking…</p>
<p>PS…I think girls are different this way than boys! Also one child is different than another. This D is better with this stuff than the other D though that D is getting better (but is younger too and different personality).</p>
<p>Soozie:</p>
<p>What a story! S went off to Toronto last January and never called once. Boys are different, indeed.</p>
<p>Marite…my kids agree to call when traveling because I have impressed upon them that their doing so alleviates our concern. This is even more important to me when traveling alone overseas as nobody else is going to know their whereabouts or if they have arrived or not or are in trouble. It just is a deal we have always had and they have willingly obliged. The calls when arriving are quick, “I got here just fine,” type things and then eventually there are calls to share information about their experiences when it is more convenient. </p>
<p>The only problem is when you DO have agreements to call and there is NO call, it is a concern for worry because it makes me wonder what happened that they didn’t call. This has not happened very much, thankfully. It did one time this year when younger D flew to NYC and was to take a taxi from JFK to her dorm and call upon arrival at her dorm (had already called when she arrived at JFK). When the call never came and she wasn’t answering her cell, I can’t tell you how long the next two hours were. LONNNNNNG. Called her roomie. She had not arrived. Who do you call in NYC? My heart went into overdrive. These are the kinds of things I find hard to take. I also have had a child (this same one) who was in a car crash when I was traveling and it is the call no parent ever wants to get. It only adds to the worries. She had decided not to take the cab as agreed upon which we had given her the money for and thought it would be easier to take public transportation which involved like two trains and a subway with a lot of luggage and it was so roundabout and took WAY longer than the taxi and she was underground a lot of the time and so we could not reach her. Rather than a 35 min. trip like we expected to get a call when she arrived at the dorm, her alternate plan which she told NOBODY, took two hours and had a lot of people very concerned, my husband and I were in a sweat and helpless wondering where she was. So, different kids…and again, an example of when you DO have agreements to call and you don’t call, it can sometimes make it worse. After that debacle, she has been better, including her independent travels since then to Brazil, Florida, Boston, and CA. :D</p>
<p>I’m jealous - not about the trip, but about the calls! :)</p>
<p>In my family, the middle child is the worst about calling. I personally think it has to do with his happy-go-lucky attitude about everything. He forgives quickly, and forgets easily. He cannot relate to worrying at all. His attitude: a) Don’t sweat the small stuff. b) It’s all small stuff.</p>
<p>So I think he doesn’t call because everything is fine and who would worry? He does call when HE is worried - like when his plane is delayed and he misses his connection. Or when he falls asleep on a cross-country train in a foreign country and misses his stop and gets off in the middle of Germany because it is the last stop of the night and he got kicked off, and it’s the middle of winter, and the station is closed … then he calls. But if things are going fine, why would anybody worry?</p>
<p>I wonder if it is this attitude that makes him, and your D2, Soozie, great performers?</p>
<p>Binx…all of their personalities are interesting and certainly come into play with this kind of thing! D1 has just always been the reliable, responsible, mature, organized, easygoing, agreeable one. </p>
<p>And yes, D2 is a little like your son (though she is better about calling with travel arrangements, or getting better anyway…but in other ways, was the one we had to get on her case to call us from camp and stuff…she is in her own little world at times…but I must say, we do get lots of little calls now from NYC as she is walking down the street…which get cut off as she enters the subway or an elevator, LOL…but beats no calls at all). There is a certain type of personality with some creative types (though honestly my other child is creative too so there goes that theory, lol). But with D2, she is very organized when it comes to school, jobs, music, and her passions. But with other things, not so much. </p>
<p>I have to laugh about the sleeping on the train story! I actually discussed this with D1 because she will have been traveling yesterday, all night and then all day today and will arrive past midnight in Spain without having seen a bed all this time. She talked about getting some sleep on the five hour train ride she is on right now to Southwestern France. I said, be careful…you could sleep right through your stop and so set your cell phone alarm! Honestly, I don’t have to worry about her this way. But I have always worried about D2 who has been on many train trips alone and I think she will fall asleep and miss the stop too. So far, nobody has, but I should have told D1 about YOUR son, lol. </p>
<p>Unrelated to that…when I was reading your earlier travails about the music job in Korea…My younger one has had many professional contracts. Some were major ones with symphony orchestras and those contracts were brokered and looked over by an agent. I realize there was no agent in your son’s dealings. Still, she has had written contracts for other engagements and so these are important to iron out the kinds of details that came into question with your son’s deal. In the future, he may wish to have his own contract to review and sign. The ensemble mom who was the go between didn’t seem to care about your son’s interests and did not keep him informed or consult with him on aspects that he should have had a say as to whether to agree or not to the terms.</p>
<p>PS…your train story just reminded me of an old memory that is making me laugh. But back in Kindergarten which was half day here, D2 was riding the mini bus home (only Kindergartners rode it…I’m talking about ten children). She never arrived. I went outside, and called her name. I called the next nearest K family up the road (this is rural country…dirt road…can’t see other homes…wooded…lots of property between any homes) to see if their D had arrived and indeed she had. I started getting worried. I had to call the school to tell them my D never arrived home. They called the driver and as he was returning to school after dropping all the kindergartners off, he discovered my D asleep on the back seat! I guess our worries never end being parents!</p>
<p>Glad you can laugh about that sleeping child story - it could have been a nightmare! A few years back, a daycare here left a sleeping child on the bus, and the child died! (It gets hot here, especially in enclosed vehicles.) We have our own nightmare about a similar incident involving our D, but I still can’t even talk about it - 16 years later, even though she’s fine. </p>
<p>One of our biggest concerns sending S2 to NYC was the subways he’d be riding. He falls asleep almost instantly in a moving vehicle, and we were worried he would wake up on a subway, stripped naked! 
He tends to ride standing up for that very reason (the sleeping part, not the stripping part). He did joke, though, about not being worried about whether or not he would sleep on the plane. It’s just not a problem for him.</p>
<p>You’re right, that there are all kinds of nuances that come into play. My oldest is also creative, but he is the oldest, and that seems to carry with it a certain level of responsibility. He also loves to talk, unlike my second. I usually call both boys once a week, but if I get busy, the oldest will call me and see why I haven’t called. The second won’t notice.</p>
<p>At 3:30 a.m. tonight (4:30 PM his time) S2 should be catching his plane home. Please pray his trip is uneventful!</p>