<p>I am another one who hasn’t seen d since August. She won’t be home for Thanksgiving. H went down for Parent’s weekend, is on his way home today. It is a 16 hour drive. </p>
<p>He could have come home yesterday, she has 4 tests this week and told him it was more important to study for those than to see him yesterday, so he spent the whole day in his hotel. The room was prepaid for last night, otherwise he might have come home early. He did go down Thursday and spent Friday and Saturday with her.</p>
<p>Amanda…Count us in the “haven’t seen their kid since drop off” in August…
and we aren’t going to be at Parent’s weekend…so It will be a countdown til Thanksgiving.</p>
<p>I am happy that Kiddo is happy–and am still counting the days til I get a hug!!</p>
<p>EAO, HighHead, Scoutsmom and Yale2015 etc (may have left some out)…enjoy the Parent’s weekend. Regardless of the formal events being a big draw or not, it should be a lot of fun. Is there a football game this weeken or any concerts? I ecpect there should be some great things to do/see…even exhibits at the museum. If you see my kiddo - share a hug for me.</p>
<p>Highhead, LOVE TJMaxx and Marshalls, went last week to look for something to wear to reunion and found a pair of coach boots on sale for 100 dollars. I can’t tell you how many women walked by me while I was trying them on saying OMG, where did you find those. Of course they were in the clearance section, last pair and I wear size 11 so to say I was excited was an understatement. I can NEVER find shoes unless they are from Payless (cheaper quality) or Nordstroms -very expensive. For some reason 11’s are hard to find even though I know quite a few women who have this size. (Sorry don’t mean to start a thread about shoe size!)
Yalemom15, thanks for the weather update! I am excited to go and glad it won’t be too cold, bringing D her winter jacket which I assured her she would not need until end of October! So far its been ok!
As for the dinner thing, the other the father who made the reservations for the group is an Alum and knows restaurants in the area. He didn’t ask any of us, just made the reservations and told his daughter he did it and to tell her suitemates to let us know. I for one am glad he did. When my son was a freshman I organized a dinner with his roommates parents,(I had their e-mails), one kids parents didn’t come and we of course took him out with us! You may just want to take the ball and run with it. You can always cancel it and the parents will hopefully appreciate the opportunity to get to know you.</p>
<p>FogFog, sorry you won’t be there! It would have been fun to see you again, next time! I will give kiddo a hug if I see him, I may even seek him out to hug him but I guess you should warn him, haha!</p>
<p>We’re going down to Family Weekend, but not sure about activities apart from D’s A Capella concert on Saturday night. Most of it sounds pretty boring. We had planned to take a tour with S to get him thinking about college more closely, but he has a big xc meet on Saturday that he can’t miss (despite our asking the coach months ago). So I guess we’ll just wander around with D, if she can take time off from studying, and maybe take her out to lunch. Good thing we like the town and will have fun there on our own!</p>
<p>I apologize for the interuption in the yale thread ;)</p>
<p>EB~Love your post and all the great news regarding your D. College is all about finding yourself :)</p>
<p>KP~Glad to read that you had a wonderful week-end with your son. Vermont is a beautiful area and your hike sounds wonderful.</p>
<p>kinder~So glad about the positive feedback at this critical time. Writing is one of those discipline where patience is key. Just like a good cup of tea :p</p>
<p>Highhead~So glad she loves her dresses, at least the stress is over. She will look wonderful on Sat.</p>
<p>BI~Progress…Did you hang out with some Cc’14 over the week-end You sure did!!
Folks BI is just as radiant and kind in person as she is in her posts. We had a wonderful time discussing all aspects of college life, motherhood, and collegiate outfits for mothers.
Definitly looking forward to some other meet ups :)</p>
<p>Hugs to all missing their students, I did last year as we did not see S1 from August to November.Then few days in December as he left the 26 for volunteering work.It is rough to go from the 19 years of every day routine to skyping once a week or even in some case no news for a while. I believe it is more a way of showing independence than lack of consideration. Hang in there Mamas, they will be back before you know it.</p>
<p>I would so love to meet you all and am so jealous of the Virginia chapter of CC parents getting to hold an in-person event!</p>
<p>I have met momofboston and it was wonderful. Our kids have also met at our gentle urging and once they got over how weird their Mom’s are they seemed to get along just fine-my son even mentioned when I asked him last week how their lunch went it was “fine” and when I asked if they were keeping in touch he said he had just received a text from her-so I guess they have made a nice connection even though he is very close-mouthed about the social part of his education. I haven’t heard much about the academic part either-actually I haven’t heard much from him lately although he did contact me several times this weekend that he was “lonely”-it was Parent’s Weekend but we couldn’t go due to soccer commitments for the girl-and then he called me as my daughter was being carried off the field after crashing into the goalie that he had just picked up his mail and had been summoned for jury duty in January and what should he do?? I think I may have told him to get a grip and hung up on him! It was a pretty intense day all around with lots of family stress and I did lose it with him-but we had a nice long chat Saturday night and he seemed to get out a lot of his bad feelings. He is pretty resilient like his father and I think he will be OK-heck he’s doing better than I am-but I don’t think he worries about me! :)</p>
<p>EB: So glad that you had a nice visit with your daughter and that she’s adjusting. I have run into a couple of moms in the past few days whose kids graduated with S2 and who are talking about adjustment issues that their kiddos are having. During the first few weeks of school it seemed that everyone I ran into said that their kids just loooooovvvvved their schools, their roommates, their sports/EC’s, etc. Is it that the honeymoon period is over…or that parents are hearing some reality from their kids? Either way, while some adjust seamlessly, it’s a bumpy ride for others – a lot of others, I suspect. I have a very dear friend who seemed so negative the other day when I asked about her freshman son. She doesn’t hear from him frequently and it worries her terribly. He wasn’t the strongest student in high school and she fears that he is crashing and burning and she will not find out until it is too late. She said that she’s having a hard time not assuming the worst. It’s hard on our students and on the parents, too!</p>
<p>Pepper: Hope your D is okay after her run-in with the goalie. </p>
<p>kathiep: Loved your photos on shutterfly! Perfect fall pictures.</p>
<p>Thanks for the heads up on the new pix kathie! Wonderful fall color! :)</p>
<p>Pepper, I would love to meet more CC’ers. We just got so lucky on the date this weekend with everyone planning on being there!</p>
<p>O’mom, Sorry to hear about your friend’s son. I hope he is able to find some support at his university. I agree there is a mix of an end to honeymoon and students finally communicating more, or more effectively perhaps, with parents. Either way it can be very critical how the information is approached. It is hard without seeing them to know just how much angst/difficulty/trouble are they really in. Very hard to know the right line to walk.</p>
<p>(Based on kids touching down at home on the Wednesday before TG. Some kids may get the full week and will land at home sooner.)</p>
<p>AvonMom and DD '14 went Halloween shopping yesterday and got a lot of stuff for DS’s Halloween surprise care package. Since I am the official package “packer”, I put it all together this morning. Looks lke we will keep the Post Office running for another day!</p>
<p>kathiep - beautiful pics!
pepper - is your daughter ok? I like your “get a grip” - I should try that next time I get the questions of “I got on this bus but I’m not sure if it’s going in the right direction, can you look it up on the internet?”</p>
<p>I am not close to many '11 parents (shocker) but those I talk to basically have the bumpy road reply (if they’re honest). I think talking face to face I will be able to better understand how “my eng. prof is an *ss” and “my roommate is crazy/drunk 5 nights a week” and “I love it here!!” go together. I totally get that for the most part, they are dumping issues and then moving merrily on to class while we stress. I have adjusted to the idea that we have no inkling of what final grades will be. But in the scheme of things, he is growing up, perhaps attending classes too, and maybe at the end of this expensive experiment, he will be wiser. I will be grayer and crouched over like some granny.</p>
<p>FlMath - missed the today segment, what was the consensus?</p>
<p>Thanks FLMath-she is back at it with just a few bruises-she got lucky.</p>
<p>We do let our son have a drink at a holiday or family party-which he usually doesn’t finish. He is finding he doesn’t like it very much-which pleases me a great deal as my family has an unfortunate history of alcoholism. I would rather it not hold any allure to him as something forbidden-but as something that socially in small quantities is fine. I am well aware the drinking age is 21 but in this state it is legal to let them drink at home.</p>
<p>We have had very honest discussions about this and he knows he may well be predisposed to having a problem with it at some point in his life-or being a social drinker with no issues-or maybe not wanting to drink at all.</p>
<p>I feel this is an issue that can be handled any number of ways by a family and this is the way we have chosen.</p>
<p>Yeah AK I liked the “get a grip” response too! If that doesn’t work you guys all know what he’ll get next don’t you? What really sent me off the rails was his repeated calling and texting about what to do about the summons-and then he texted he was going to apply for an extension that very minute! On top of this he calls just as Thing 2 is being carried off the field like she was on a stretcher! My son, the great procrastinator-had to deal with it THAT MINUTE! That’s when I called him and told him to email me the link and not to do anything until we talked about it. He may do a study abroad program this summer and we need to check those dates. I was amazed at his sense of urgency over this when he has never shown a sense of urgency over anything else in his life-weird.</p>
<p>My 20yo get’s the ‘not my problem’ or ‘get a grip’ response when he’s pushed the boundaries of what we should be helping him with. He left me hanging last week until it was too late to pick up his car from the shop. I wasn’t waiting the next day…too freaking bad, I do have a life beyond you (or at least I made plans to put a point on it), and made him make other arrangements. Bluejr lost a pretty important paper a few weeks ago. The response was pretty much “Gosh, so very sorry you’ll have to jump through the hoops to get that back. You have the phone numbers.”. I love my kids, but if they are not in immediate danger they really have to take the reins. My mother thinks I’m mean…moi ;)</p>
<p>So, what did the segment on Today say about letting your teen drink at home?</p>
<p>We have allowed it with dinner for a few years now when we are having wine and let him drink as much as he wanted at family weddings. That helped him learn that mixing drinks wasn’t a good idea and that feeling ill in the car on the way home wasn’t a pleasant experience. </p>
<p>I think it’s part of a parents job to teach their kids how to drink responsibly before sending them off to college.</p>
<p>Yep, 4 or even 5 years of expensive experiment. I am with you and hope my S will grow up and be wiser at end of this experiment! I talked to a mom last night whose son is at Brown. She said that most top ranking universities/colleges do not require basic courses such as English, History, etc. so that the students can explore courses they are interested in and/or complete double majors in four years if desired. According to my Ss engineering degree plan, he is required to have about 27 credit hours from English, Social and Behavioral Sciences, and Arts courses in order to graduate. Luckily he can claim credits based on his AP scores for most of his required electives. But if an engineering student does not have many credits to claim from then s/he may not be able to finish in four years. I remember when we visited NU we were informed that double majoring (ex. engineering + music) is common there. Is that true that elite schools have different academic approaches from state schools to accommodate students interests?
How about your kids school? Are basic courses required to graduate?</p>