DS has a North face backpack, but with a built-in rain cover. It’s come in quite handy he says.
He is busy with the last week of class, upcoming formals, including one away at Kent State, and upcoming finals. A friend of a friend needed a formal date, and he fits the bill I guess.
He’ll be home May 7!
Less than 3 weeks my kids will be home for the summer! This year flew by! To think I was dreading the empty nest so much, now I’m quite used to my own schedule, the house being clean, not worrying about where the kids are and when they’re coming home!
Me, too, @ eyemamom I thought it’d be so quiet and boring, but I’ve grown to love the peace and the not cooking dinner every night.
My oldest moved home yesterday. Her lease was up and she’ll be moving to a new city when she starts working post-boards. So, this will be her last stint living with us ever (or so we hope). D’14’s semester ends May 1, but she has signed up for May term (must take 2), so I have a month to get used to 1 being home before I add the second.
I feel the same way. Dreaded the empty nest & now I love it.
That empty nest concept? I’ve enjoyed it, too. It’s quiet. Things get done when they get done. No longer have to run to a practice or a game, either. I’ll enjoy when my sons do come home – the older one wants to make an appearance in June, as he needs to go to the dentist. The younger one, his first year is almost done. He called last night to say that he continues to apply for jobs, hoping to land something so he can make additional money. He also has a list of foods that he hopes that I will cook for him. Maybe I’ll give him the recipe, and he can learn to cook them!
Anyone else’s kid saying they don’t want to come home for the summer?
My D has been trying to get an on-campus job so that she can stay at school and continue to do her own research in her lab there (she did not get the science internship she was hoping for.) It isn’t going to work out, financially, since she needs to save a chunk of cash for tuition in the summer. I assumed she’d come home and work here, since it’s much easier to save money that way.
However, she says she’s really feeling empowered and independent and adult and she is afraid if she comes home she’ll slip back into her high school attitude and habits, which she does not want. Nor do I, but I still feel sad and uneasy about her not being here this summer. I assumed that I’d deal with that NEXT summer… She’s applied for summer jobs at lodges and camps where room/board is included. It might work out or it might not. We’ll see.
I’m really glad she’s doing so well and embracing adulthood and all that. And I KNOW it’s a natural part of growing up. But it still makes me sad and worried!
D’14 is coming home for the summer, but she’d rather not. She also didn’t get the summer research position she’d hoped for, so it’s back to the local pool where she’ll be in management this time. She did put me on notice that she’ll be working harder next year to get an internship or research position at or near her school. Ok by me. She’s not my first, so I know it’s coming, and I did discover this year that I enjoyed my empty nest more than I thought I would.
I think the worry that she might slip back into her high school self is a legitimate one. The old roles are comfortable, and not just for her.
I wouldn’t worry about camp/lodge jobs that hire a lot of summer help and have them live on site. I started that kind of work at 16. It’s a lot like dorm life, and if she’s been able to handle that, she’ll be fine.
DD’14 was planning on take 12 credits of Mandarin at her college and even had the financial aid lined up, but they canceled the class due to low enrollment. So she’s scrambling to find a job near home but it’s pretty late in the game, especially for an economically depressed area 
. Fast food or farm work may be her only options and she’s feeling a bit sad and stressed about that, poor thing.
Thanks for the support 
Yeah- it is late to be looking for jobs. I’m concerned that she’ll end up back at home with not enough shifts at the local retail/restaurants to keep her busy and earn the money she needs. Then she’ll just sit around moping and watching TV all day and that WILL be just like high school! Hopefully something will pan out… or at the very least she will learned from it that she needs to have more options on the table earlier in the game next year.
@staceyneil Is a community college class a possibility if she has too much free time? My oldest knocked off a couple of classes over the summers. Now, there was no fin aid, so each class cost a few hundred, and maybe that is an issue, but I wouldn’t want a kid moping around watching TV (or worse yet catting around half the night).
My D14 will be staying in her college city for the summer.
She was a bit surprised last month when I suggested the option if internships local to us did not pan out. I told her that as long as it didn’t cost us anything, it was up to her where she should be over the summer. She’ll be doing an (unpaid) internship and working a couple jobs to cover her expenses and, she hopes, save something too. The kid is hard-working, frugal, and organized so I have no doubt she’ll make it all happen.
I hadn’t thought about CC. I’ll ask her after finals. She sounds really stressed right now and doesn’t seem to have the brain space for thinking about summer yet…
DS is actually looking forward to coming home. Although he enjoys school and his friends there, he says he also misses having his own room and my cooking :). He doesn’t have any kind of fancy job lined up, just lifeguarding at a local pool. Pay isn’t great – $10 an hour – but it will give him something to do while he earns some spending money. He had an opportunity to go to Italy with his team right after school ended but he declined and said he preferred to come home. He will go to Germany for a few days with DH before the pools open so he’ll get a small vacation.
In addition to wanting his own space again, he said that this is probably the last summer at home for him and his high school buddies, to whom he is still close, and he wants to spend time with them.
He’s also told me that a couple of his college friends are planning to drive down and see him over the summer. They’ll spend a few days here exploring the DC area, and then they will all drive down to spend a few days at DS’s roommate’s beach house. Good thing lifeguarding is pretty flexible!
I experienced something this weekend that I realized I missed: listening to teenagers’ conversations. I had dinner with my D and some of her friends this weekend and this is how the conversation progressed: “We can’t believe the school year is almost over. Only three more years with you guys…wait, but one semester is abroad, that means only two and a half more years…where are you going for your semester abroad? Capetown? Everyone should do it in Europe and then we can all meet up afterwards…when are the elections? Oh man, we’re going to be out of the country during the elections…and we’re going to miss all the Hillary parties…”
How wonderful to be young and have so many opportunities in front of you. I feel so grateful my daughter and her friends have that. And I hope they recognize how fortunate they are.
My D14 will be home for a month, and then back to campus for a job (room, board and pay! Woo hoo!) She’s lined up a brief unpaid internship for the month she is home - doesn’t want to get bored…
She told us at Thanksgiving that she wouldn’t be spending the summer at home. It just took a couple of days back with the high school friends to realize that she was done with that drama. Plus Nashville vs small midwest city?
DS isn’t coming home for the summer. There are so many more job opportunities where he is (Denver), the pay is better, and he loves it there. Hasn’t yet decided whether to stick with his current job or look for another one (maybe both, stay PT at his current job and take another PT job.) He’s looking for a sublet, and deciding between a few choices; the rents don’t seem too bad. He’s even going to take a class, since he will have basically free tuition (his FA continues to be available in the summer). I’m so glad he’s thriving, but am also starting to really miss him. At least DH and I will be going to a family wedding in CO in August, so we’ll have 5 days together as a family then.
Thank heavens for Skype.
D is very excited to come home for summer. She is really having a tough time finding a job though. She wanted to avoid retail but I think she will end up there…if all those jobs aren’t scarfed up by the time she gets to those.Letting her be in control…sigh.
S14 will be back for the summer, which makes us all happy but probably is especially nice for S16. They are very close but haven’t interacted a lot remotely. S14 has had a very good interview (he said) by Skype for an environmental outdoorsy job, but also hopes to connect with a small computer game company that told him to check back in May. Plan C will be retail. We are visiting him next weekend – challenge will be to spend time with him without derailing him from the last push for his courses. I can see from the online grades (which he doesn’t know I can see) that he’s missed some assignments. Biting my tongue, and as @cakeisgreat says, letting him be in control. He could take a class this summer but we think he may need a mental break.
We’ll also meet the girlfriend next week. We see her every week when we Skype him, but apparently she’s nervous about meeting us. This summer will be interesting, socially. He didn’t manage to connect with high school friends during spring break, not sure if they’ll hang out over the summer. A couple of college friends live about an hour away; girlfriend is in another state. He might just chill out in the basement for what will probably be his last summer here, as next two summers should be co-ops.
Just had a long chat with DS. He’s sticking with his job (computer help desk) for the summer, taking a theater class (just 3 weeks), but was having trouble finding a summer sublet. Admitted to me that he didn’t really know what to do; after finding places on Craigslist, he didn’t really know how to go about evaluating them, making contact, etc. Our chat helped a lot, and I think he’s now on the way to finding something. One problem might be that the leases tend to end 8/31, but move-in day for the dorms isn’t until 9/11. So we talked about some ways for dealing with that (traveling, crashing with a friend, as well as asking about staying on a little longer).
His class will interfere with our wedding plans a little, we’ll arrive on 8/5 but he will have to stay until 8/6, so we’ll have to drive back from FoCo again to get him. But I really don’t mind, the drive isn’t that bad.
Might be the first to report it, but year 1 is officially a wrap.
DS 14 finished finals Friday morning, and we drove to pick him up. Move out was so much faster than move in. Even though DS had not packed a thing, one hour after arrival the car was packed. We had a nice dinner out, slept in our hotel, and drove the 7.5 hours home.
It’s hard to believe that before decision day for the '19s, year 1 is in books. Good luck and safe to everyone finishing up.