<p>fireflyscout, I’m so envious of your get together. I hope the others post soon, too.</p>
<p>Today we took son to get a suit. He has been wearing one of h’s anytime h’s needed one (which isn’t that often) but between H and S, we’re talking the worst shoppers of all time. Just trying to figure out a size was an exercise in frustration as son kept looking at price tags and saying, no, i don’t like it. Finally we forbade him from looking at the sticker as I had a bigger plan. In any event, we found a few he liked (basic black suit when I would have gone navy to be honest), and then we went to Nordstrom Rack and found what I assume is last year’s suit (although you couldn’t convince any of us it wasn’t the same exact suit) for almost half. They promise to have it altered by Friday. H decided to let him have first pick of his Navy blazers and then he will buy another, which would work because H has both regular and long in his “collection.” We then went to lunch and then we were supposed to finish shopping… they were both worn out!</p>
<p>Seriously I am not going to demand the kid spend money, this is certain. Question for you though… for parents of boys only: How many pairs of jeans are/did they take to school? Son only really has like three or four and so I am wondering how many do you think is ‘normal’?</p>
<p>Missypie- so sorry to hear about S’s saturday night. Can’t help but wonder why the dorm/orientation committee didn’t have something planned for Sat. night before the start of classes. There should have been something fun to do.</p>
<p>Here’s hoping that by next weekend he (and all the others) will have a weekend plan.
My S, the creature of habit, plays Magic or D&D nearly every weekend that he is at school…</p>
<p>modadunn – my son only took 3 pairs of jeans/pants to school with him (because that’s all he really owns). On the other hand, he must have taken about 15 pairs of shorts. He’s going to be in for a rude awakening in a few months when he experiences Midwest fall/winter for the first time. I think we’ll be needing to go shopping when I visit in October over parents’ weekend!</p>
<p>Modadunn, I think my son took eight pairs of jeans. He figures he can wear a pair twice before it’ll need washing, so he’s good for laundry every two weeks with jeans, tee-shirts (I think; certainly seemed like a lot were packed!), socks and underwear. </p>
<p>I even bought him a pair of khaki pants so he would have something to “dress up” in; the shirt will have to be a polo shirt, though, because he didn’t pack a dress shirt or tie. (He does have a suit, but that is here.)</p>
<p>Only clothing issue he has now is shoes – he has exactly one pair of them!</p>
<p>Well, am 1/2 way home. Had breakfast w/ S this morning before we left. I was impressed, he’d put his clothes from yesterday (stinky “move-in” clothes) into his hamper! I took a picture of his closet too and told him to email me one in a month to see the difference! Hahaha. Cried for first hour or so after, stopped when my sister called and told me I was probably giving my D a complex (she’s driving w/ me) … 
… </p>
<p>Hey Owlice, I’m in desperate need of your comfort food! :D</p>
<p>DizziMom, you are in luck! I don’t have any homemade goodies handy at the moment, but do have an open box of Hostess chocolate cupcakes! 
</p>
<p>Let me pour you a big glass of milk to wash one (or three) down. And here’s a pillow for your back. Go ahead and put your feet up, and I’ll fetch a little blanket for your legs.</p>
<p>And if you’d like a cat on your lap, I can supply the one making it difficult for me to type on the laptop. He’s big and fuzzy and purrs, but you might want to finish your cupcakes first, lest you get some cat fur along with the creamy cupcake filling. :)</p>
<p>owlice, you’re the best hostess ever! :)</p>
<p>Thanks, BengalMom! However, perhaps you should reserve judgment until you’ve had this particular cat (he of only one front paw with all claws extended in overcompensation) in your lap! :D</p>
<p>hm. after all the weirdness leading up to today, dropping S off at UCB was relatively smooth as silk. Kudos to the staff there who really did a bang up job on this day running as smooth as silk.</p>
<p>but now that its over, i dont feel sad as much as I feel, somewhat empty.</p>
<p>kumitedad, yeah, exactly.</p>
<p>Per fireflyscout’s post, WPI drop-off is done. What an amazingly easy process the actual unloading and moving was! I never touched a bag or box – which was much appreciated on a hot, humid day. We pulled up to the dorm, the car was immediately surrounded by a hoard of students from the fraternities & sororities, and in 3 minutes the car was empty. S let me help him make the bed, which surprised me. The rest is up to him. He and his roommate, who he knew from a 2-week program last summer at WPI, have big plans for the room, so it will be interesting to see it on Parents Weekend. S was in awe of his RA’s room – a double that the RA gets as a single. Since it only had 1 bed, there was room for a futon, a huge shelving unit, and multiple screens, monitors, and computers. Gotta love these tech schools!</p>
<p>So, the RL meet-up was great fun! #TM says “Hi” to all – she’ll be back in the virtual world fairly soon. S thought the whole meet-up thing was pretty funny – he kept talking about my “internet buddies.” Anyway, it really is a small world – turns out skithesteep’s H knows/works with my cousin’s H. We talked about the origin of our various screen names – 2 of us are using nicknames from our camp counselor days. We didn’t feel like strangers, even though it was the first time we’d met.</p>
<p>Oh, per the question about how many jeans? S doesn’t own a single pair, and hasn’t for a lot of years. Since 7th grade he hasn’t been allowed to wear them at his schools – so I guess one measure of how he’s changing at college will be if he buys any jeans! He probably has 5 pair of long pants – but will stay in shorts as long as possible. The other big change for him is he can wear T-shirts to class – his previous 2 schools required collared shirts.</p>
<p>Son just called in a good mood because his first ever college class was over - LOL, it was 6 minutes long (it was swimming and they won’t swim until Wednesday.)</p>
<p>He’s already overheard through the paper-thin dorm walls the girls next door talking about how drunk they were Saturday night. So maybe he doesn’t feel so bad to be excluded if that’s what the rest of the gang was up to. Ah, college is such an eye-opener!</p>
<p>On the clothes front, I think Son has 6 pairs of jeans. He had four and allowed me to buy another pair. The store was having a buy one, get one free promotion, so he ended up with two instead of one. But he would have been content going away with four.</p>
<p>missypie–so glad things seem to be better for him today. I needed to read something positive this morning. Thanks for sharing! </p>
<p>I’ve been feeling very anxious since yesterday. DD knows I’ll cry and so will she. We tried to make a joke about it last night. DH just told me it didn’t really hit him until last Friday that she was really going. I had to resort to some old Lamaze breathing this morning. Drop off is tomorrow.</p>
<p>We finally got back late yesterday. Move in was hot hot hot. Surprisingly no help at all so D and I did all the carrying and lugging. We had plenty of time to get her room all set up before her roommate arrived. Roomie is nerdier than D and a bit of a slob (she confessed) but D had met her before and they hit it off. They had lots of activities planned through the entire weekend. Some of it D wasn’t crazy about but she made it a point to participate in everything. She is in a women in science pod of the dorm which I had sort of talked her into but she is now thrilled. She says all the girls on her floor are great and was off this morning to have breakfast with another 3 before their first class all together. </p>
<p>Saying goodbye was not as bad as I expected. I said goodbye really briefly on Thursday afternoon and then DH and I went back Friday morning so he could see her dorm and we all said goodbye then. She had made her BED (both days…I was in shock). I really expected to cry cause I cry at everything but I didn’t. This DD really didn’t want me to because she worried that she would too then. The plan to travel to North Carolina for a weekend and figure out how to be a couple again was really helpful. DH was finally realizing that we were really empty nesters (some of us take longer than others to realize what’s happening). On the drive home yesterday DS called and we had a long talk with him. I think he was trying to make us feel better about the empty nest. We then talked with DD as well but having real problems with Verizon. Coverage in her dorm is basically 0 bars so texting and IM work but telephone calls don’t. May have to go to Skype.</p>
<p>She did laundry on sunday because she had some time and wanted to make sure she could get it right when it wasn’t too busy. I was amazed. I had realized that her laptop had an HDMI output and that the new TV we bought for the room had an HDMI input and asked DH to bring a spare HDMI cable we had in the house. So DD was able to have a movie party with many of the girls on the floor all crowded into their room. The money spent on all the parts was definitely well worth it.</p>
<p>And this morning was really excited about going to class. Hopefully the enthusiasm will continue. She missed our two cats too who also seriously miss both the kids. I promised DD I would send her pics today.</p>
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<p>No fair…what good are those cute fraternity and sorority kids if they don’t help you move in?</p>
<p>Women in science pod? I can see where it could sound entirely too nerdy to a hs student, but it looks like it comes off very well in execution. Could you remind me which school you’re talking about?</p>
<p>Beats me. There wasn’t anyone on campus other than the freshman for orientation (and some athletes) so I guess it would be much to expect others around to help.</p>
<p>With regard to the spacebags, I think they compress down to at least 1/3 of the volume with fluffy stuff like comforters and other linens and probably down to 1/2 of the volume for regular clothing. I think they were a really good choice for us even though I’m still trying to figure out how to fold them back into some small space. Our vacuum also didn’t fit particularly well but the valve is one way so if you even tape it to the space bag or hold fingers over the gaps you can get it to work.</p>
<p>ellemenope D is at U of Richmond.</p>
<p>SharonOhio… that’s what I did and it seemed to work much better with those space bags. I got two different kinds and it seems the ones that are flat work better than those shaped to got into cubes. I ducktaped the holes in the hose (that allow it to click into the bigger vacuum unit). MUCH faster process as well. </p>
<p>Can I just say that H is driving me nuts! Seems that I know nothing about packing and moving and what’s what… he has all the answers because he paid tuition? I keep trying to suggest this is transferred frustration from kid movng out, but he was too busy being right than listening to me.</p>