<p>oh missypie. it sounds so trite to say I feel your pain, but my eyes tear up when I read about your S. i wish i had comforting or reassuring words but i just have {{{hugs}}} for you and for him.</p>
<p>zetesis, i’m glad things are looking up for you, but my heart goes out to your evacuated friends.</p>
<p>Just talked to S – he called just under the deadline I set for him, which is that I have to hear his voice at least once a week. He was actually quite chatty – not compared to D, but for him. H & I were in the car on the way back from a wonderful, small Mexican place that serves great margaritas. He’s totally into the Air Force ROTC program on campus – but that could change later when the real commitment deadline is in front of him. But, it’'s all good so far, which was great to hear. I won’t have to carry out my threat of showing up at his door since he didn’t call …</p>
<p>Zetesis, glad to hear things are OK with you at the moment.</p>
<p>Oh, Missypie, that is so heartbreaking. I wish I could fix it for him/you. Very mad at his roommates… that doesn’t make sense… Damn.</p>
<p>I’ve spent all afternoon with girlfriends who have just launched. My mom friends with daughters seem to have it rougher right now–they are really close with their girls, and are missing their company. One friend texted on her way home from about 200 miles away to tell me I hadn’t warned her how gut-wrenching it was going to be. Another dear friend who was widowed last summer just launched her last daughter, and I am REALLY worried about her coming home to an empty house later tonight. The upside is that the girls seem to be actually CALLING their moms. We’re not getting phone contact yet–emails mostly. I don’t want to bug S2, but he WILL call once a week if I have to threaten him bodily. </p>
<p>Seriously, in addition to you all, I have at least ten dear friends who are going through this. Does anyone know a good Tequilla sock to invest in?</p>
<p>missypie–your post just reminded me of something. I do need to do the “mother” thing with daughter and remind her to reach out to someone that seems alone. Not an easy thing for a shy young woman, but it’s definitely one of those things I’ve always tried to encourage her to do.</p>
<p>Drove to Boston today to pick up S1 from his job and bring him home for three weeks before heading back to school. Saw many, many cars on the road loaded with college gear and thought of all of you! My your kids have successful launches and adjust quickly and easily to their new schools. </p>
<p>And may all your chocolate be calorie free!</p>
<p>Hey, I biked 29 miles today and 20 miles yesterday so I could eat whatever the mystery dessert is, so bring on the recipe already!!</p>
<p>“missypie–your post just reminded me of something. I do need to do the “mother” thing with daughter and remind her to reach out to someone that seems alone. Not an easy thing for a shy young woman, but it’s definitely one of those things I’ve always tried to encourage her to do.”</p>
<p>I wish more parents would do that.</p>
<p>Whirlwind of a day that started at 4am so we could leave for the airport by 5… did I mention AM? Last night when I was printing off boarding passes I noted that both legs of the journey were on 50 -75 passenger planes. So small, no room for the carry one etc. The longer leg was actually a fairly good flight despite (or because) all three of us being split up (albeit within 5 yards of one another). The second flight, however, was run by nazi flight attendants who would not iet H go to bathroom because it required his standing on the plane. Suffice it to say that this was but the tip of a very deep iceberg to the point where I almost wanted to complain. My son was watching his computer they came up and said he had to turn it off as we were going to land (45 minutes later). So he goes to close his game and then shut it down and the guy flips on him saying, “turn it off NOW.” I was sitting across the aisle and in the seat behind and I really almost flipped on the guy. He goes, I guess I have to stand here until you do it. Seriously, little man disease and possibly jealous of Son’s extreme good looks (that’s what I am going with.)</p>
<p>Anyway… … the woman I sat next to was telling me her son has Aspergers and as only a 8th grader or maybe because of who he is, he doesn’t really feel the need for friends apparently. Although, right now he has his family to come home to. Missy… is there anyway you might call the RA or higher up to get a feel for the dynamic in the suite? I too will remind son to be nice to all and extra nice to some. </p>
<p>I am so tired and much like Northernwoods, we are middrop off. So… as for the dessert. I didn’t make it, D did. But I will get the recipe from her, but I do know what was in it. Chocolate cookies (hardest find were there… but finally found wafers at like $5 for a row of box. Personally, I might try peppermint patties during girlscout seaason), malted milk balls, Malted Milk powder, Vanilla icecream and whipping cream. And somehting else that escapes my memory, I think. Basically it was a deluxe ice cream pie that was inhaled after it was taken out of the freezer. I will get the recipe from here once I get home.</p>
<p>Will report on the launching tomorrow, but tonight I am BEYOND exhausted. Son was really quite nervous walking into the cafeteria (that he called a lunch room when he called us) and having no one to sit with. He is not one to jump willy nily into new situations, so we could tell how nervous he was. But… they played some icebreaker games and then they were to be lights out around 9-10pm and upper classmen were coming around to check on all first years. How cute is that?</p>
<p>hey Modunn–you do sound tired here and I really hope you wake up tomorrow with new hope. I mentioned to S a few months ago about eating alone as I remember that well. It is awkward but might be helpful to know that it can happen to anyone.</p>
<p>Missypie–you got it–I will remind my S to talk to others especially if they are alone. But I agree that you might email the RA and ask if he/she will check on S as he has a diagnosible situation (other that you being a helicopter parent). This would NOT be over the top but just keep it light and a “hey, my S has… and could you check to see if he is connecting…”.
Many more I want to respond to but it is getting late. OK I will confess that I am not a sweet chocalate gal but a “mineral” person. A lady checking my groceries explained that she says she likes minerals --which is salt (and fat is a great combo).
So I just had a lovely vodka gimlet and a bowl of a salty marinated Fava beans dish. But alas, I am still working at the 5 lbs I have managed to put on this last college crazy year!</p>
<p>Another one launched. We spent yesterday driving 4 hours up, than doing the move in thing.
I am happy to report that all went well. Other than my helping make up the bed and H hooking up the printer, D wanted to do it all herself. She and roomate had met on facebook and then spent time together at orientation, seems like a really nice girl and a good match. Only word I have gotten so far is a text telling me the room is set up and looks “beautiful”.</p>
<p>H is having a harder time with this than I am. I miss D a lot, but feel that this is what we worked 18+ years for and am glad she seems so happy and excited. </p>
<p>I haven’t had much time lately to read all of your posts in depth, but I have been skimming them. All of you who are going through rough times (whether your own or your kids), are in my thoughts and prayers. I hope it all works out and soon.</p>
<p>missy-I’m not sure if he is doing this, but encourage your S to get out of his room on weekends even if he has no plans. Watch TV in a lounge or student union, read in the library, courtyard or any public area. Look for campus activities and clubs that do things on the weekends and give them a try. Attend a recital. If he’s so inclined, attend a church service or campus ministry gathering.</p>
<p>Don’t waste your energy on what ifs. Instead focus on scouring the school’s website to find activities and events he may enjoy and send an email with sugggestions. Encourage him to give new things a try, once. He doesn’t have to go back if he doesn’t like it, but give it a try. It is still very early in the semester, don’t be discouraged. Let him know that it really is ok to eat alone.</p>
<p>Hang in there!</p>
<p>Woke up this morning after sleeping like a log. Gosh, I was tired between all the stress and late nights. Felt good to get to sleep especially early with the time change. The day will be cool today and I wish I had brought another sweatshirt or jacket, although I did bring a raincoat thinking it would rain yesterday and never did!</p>
<p>Son’s room/suite arrangement. Their room is right off the shared suite and closest to the bathroom… both good and bad. The room is very small and with windows and doors on three of four walls, it’s a little tricky to set up. As it is, he took the bed furthest away from the door and the desk closest to him. His roommate faces having the door open to hit his bed frame, but he’ll the most accessible closet. Son’s bed prevents the closet from opening fully. He did get the better bed, in terms of location, but like I said, his closet situation leaves much to be desired. I am hoping the roommate finds this fair. Maybe they will bunk the beds, but S really doesn’t want to sleep in bunks. We’ll let them work it out.</p>
<p>As I said, the spacebags were a huge umm… space-saver and frankly made unpacking a breeze. Most of the clothes weren’t that wrinkled but I did take his dress shirts to iron for him so they are at least ironed once. 
They have their team picture (uniforms) today as well as individuals in coat and tie. They are really keeping him busy, this is certain. </p>
<p>Today is my birthday - now don’t all jump to say happy birthday and I will assume the good wishes are implied and thank you in advance. (How’s that for efficient). The hotel we stayed at last night is full thru orientation so we are moving to the next town over for the next few days to what I hope is a sweet little inn so we’ll try to combine a bit of vacation in here as well. We are doing the target run and some other things for S (bank, etc), but other than that parent orientation doesn’t really begin until 4pm tomorrow.</p>
<p>Glad to hear most of the kids are reasonably communicating with their parents and hope that trend hold for our son. Oh!! Favorite moment so far? H and I were leaving the room and I had hung all his stuff and showed him (again) how to fold his t-shirts so they weren’t wrinkled and would stay folded even if you pulled out a shirt below, he actually said… “Mom, thanks so much for everything.” While I wonder if H reminded him because he clearly singled me out, it didn’t matter. He was hugely sincere.</p>
<p>By the way… while there are only blinds on the windows, did parents of boys do anything for curtains? Will wait until roommate parents arrive, but was just wondering.</p>
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<p>Gotta get back to the gym…my clothes are getting tight so I fear the only desserts I can eat are virtual. So proud of you for biking. I’ve been enjoying the backyard pool instead of hitting the gym but honestly, I don’t swim laps or anything, so I’m kidding myself if I think I’m burning calories.</p>
<p>Modadunn and Fallgirl, congrats on the launches. LOL Modadunn on the room logistics…don’t you wonder what they were thinking when they designed some of these dorm rooms? Son’s room is one of the older ones but has been kept up pretty well. But even when new, the layout would have still been awkward. And Modadunn, I think that some of the airlines have Marine DI’s conduct their customer service training.</p>
<p>Thanks for all your concern over Son. He does think it’s perfectly fine to eat alone…give him a book and he’s great. But that’s a problem in itself…if you persist in eating alone, then folks will think (perhaps correctly) that you prefer it, then you’ll never have company.</p>
<p>The thing that initially bothered me about Son’s small LAC in a small town is the lack of things to do. There just aren’t that many different places to be. When I was thinking so hard about things to tell him to do to just get him out of the room, I couldn’t really think of anything…no nearby Barnes & Noble, no nearby Starbucks…tiny library, tiny student center…when he said the only thing going on on Saturday night was a party at a frat house, he wasn’t lying…not a lot of options. As scary as this is (from an academic standpoint), I think I’ll enourage him to bring Guitar Hero back with him and play that over the weekends with his door open…maybe that will encourage some traffic to his room.</p>
<p>I don’t know that I’m ready to fault Son’s suitemates. One of the things that made us seek a diagnosis when Son was in 4th grade was because he has some very nice boys in his classroom, and still no friends. When a kid is with a group of jerks, it’s easy to blame them; but when nice boys won’t befriend him, it might be the kid. Son may very well be giving off “I want to be alone” vibes. The RA is right across the hall, which I don’t think is an accident, but I’m not quite ready to get her involved yet.</p>
<p>Y’all are very sweet to be concerned, with so many other issues going on in your lives!</p>
<p>Is anyone having any luck Skyping, with a good quality video image? When my son was still home, we could Skype with a very clear video image (not too surprising I guess, since we were in the same house - bits didn’t need to go very far). Now that he is at school, and on the college network, the image is quite bad - very jerky, big delays, freezing, etc. Really not watchable.</p>
<p>I’ve also tried Skyping with another friend (outside of my house), and that image was pretty good. A little slow, but watchable.</p>
<p>I’ve done a little bit of googling on this, and I think it may be a bandwidth issue related to the college network, I’d just like to hear about anyone else’s experience.</p>
<p>DL–our skype is good w/son (at big college, 900 miles away). It occasionally freezes (about 1 or 2 times per call) but it’s kind of funny for us to watch it slowly unfreeze (we are easily entertained). Hope they can fix the bandwith thing. There is also google video chat.</p>
<p>We tried Skype for the first time this weekend. We had difficulty with video initially - until my DD plugged her Mac directly into the dorm network and got off the wireless network. The image would freeze for a moment once in a while, but it worked extremely well. The clarity of the voice was just amazing – so much better that trying to talk cell-to-cell.</p>
<p>Back from another whirlwind trip. Weather was cold here in the midwest! Certainly not end of August temps.
Glad you are safe from the fires Zetesis!
hmom…don’t know how you survived the double launch! You must be extremely organized and so very strong!
owlice…grrr! missed all of your wonderful treats!
Modadunn…So much in awe of you for handling all of the logistics of your trip! Sounds like the launch is going fairly well.
Dragonlady…skype is working well for us. No problems with visiting with her away at OOS school.
missypie…sigh…sending lots of hugs and positive thoughts to you and S. </p>
<p>D2 continues to have emotional ups and downs. She is doing very well in her sport with the coach having confidence in her and rewarding her with lots of playing time and a starting position. She continues to be sad and mopey around us, however. She started the game yesterday and played 3/4 of the game and the team won. She should have been thrilled. Instead she slowly walked off the field by herself to meet us after the game with no smiles or enthusiasm. Is she just like this around us??? Keeps saying she isn’t happy and wants to come home. Classes don’t start until Thursday and she will be gone for another OOS trip for games over the weekend. When asked about specific girls she will say they are nice, funny, etc. Can’t figure her out and the Eyeore personality is driving me crazy!!! I am so frustrated with her and having trouble not losing it with her. She has so many blessings in her life…she is at a beautiful school that is paid for, the coach likes her, the girls like her, she has at least one great roommate, her apartment is large and beautiful, she got all the classes she wanted, she has a new car at school if she needs to get off campus., etc. And still she is sad. I really think it is missing the boytoy. She texted she has to help kids move in today as a team community service. I think that will be good for her. I told her I hope she meets some other nice freshman…no response. sigh…</p>
<p>Thanks Jolynne, that’s interesting that you have no problems with it. S’s school is less than 100 miles away, and its an engineering school, so you’d think they’d have lots of bandwidth. I suspect that we would encounter the same problem with google or aim video chat.</p>
<p>Moda, its just not IN me to not say “happy birthday,” so I’m hoping that this passive sentence satisfies the implication requirements… ;)</p>
<p>giddey_up - that’s a good point (wired vs wireless connection). I know for certain that the 1st time we tried to talk to him he was on a wired connection. We had a bad audio & video connection, so I added a “skype exception” to my firewall, which seemed to fix the audio problem. The 2nd time we tried to talk, we still had a bad video connection, but it is possible that he was on a wireless connection then. I’ll have to follow up with him about that. Thanks.</p>