@mommdc Well thanks for that but we picked up a shower caddie at BBB in May before our sweet girl headed to her summer camp counselor job a few hours away. You see…she left for this job the day after graduation in May to the end of July so she hasn’t had any downtime. I’ve been traveling for business so, yes, we’ve been to BBB a few times this weekend…and will most likely visit again since we have a “pack and hold” at the BBB near GW.
http://grownandflown.com/lonely-return-empty-nest/
Great article .
Good article. I have finally figured out why I haven’t been too upset yet. I feel like we are just taking him to another camp & he’ll be back home soon. I’m in denial that he is leaving the nest (probably forever).
Going to have to work on this but, #4 & #5 will help!
@bookmom7 YES, that is exactly how both D and I felt as we got ready for the move, even moving in and getting ready for us to head home. I still sometimes feel like she’s coming home soon. I tear up over the lunch snacks on sale for “back to school” or the sweater I see that I know she’d want, but H and I are getting to enjoy this lack of structured pick ups and drop offs.
Tomorrow D has her first day of class. I’ll have to share with you all her first day of kindergarten and why I’ll retell the story on FB tomorrow. But this time, I don’t think she’s a bit nervous. “You know I’m always excited to start learning, Mom!”
It’s hitting me I’m heading into my last full week at home. I was sitting on the couch with my mom and I all of the sudden started crying. I’m going to miss her, and just the little everyday things the most. We can all do this! Can’t wait to hear your story @sseamom !
I always have a pile of expired BBB coupons. The most coupons I ever used for one order was 10. You can’t use the coupons online, but you can go to the store and apply the coupons if they place the order online for you. I needed 10 curtain panels and the ones I wanted were on clearance online, but not available in the store.
Thanks for that link, @carolinamom2boys. I found some pretty interesting things to read there, almost as if that couple were, as Roberta Flack so sweetly sang, “telling my whole life with [their] words…”
Thanks for the article, @carolinamom2boys. I’ve been having a pity party lately and was ready for some upbeat advice. I especially liked the quote, “As their world expands, ours will as well.” I’m so excited for what my D will learn and experience because I know she’ll share at least some of it and much of it will be new to me too. 
DS is losing patience with this whole launching thing. He is finding everyone wanting to say goodbye “depressing”. I am sure that DS and DD have discussed me because I have been told by DD “you are behaving like he is never coming home again”. I just laughed as we were out at dinner with my parents when that happened but I got more than one knowing look from my Mom. She and I know that DS will come home but it will be an increasingly different him each time. It is all good and it is definitely time but we have to mark this milestone knowing big changes are on the way. Our kids just do not really understand how big yet.
Exactly @Cheeringsection . The boy that leaves in a few weeks will not be the young man that returns at Thanksgiving or Christmas. And yes , he’ll be home again, but he will seem more like a guest than a resident. What’s so funny is that for whatever reason our children believe that we have no clue what’s about to transpire .
@bookmom7 I am the same as you. I haven’t been feeling sad or weepy at all and have been reading all the recent posts here with a bit of puzzlement but I think it is because it just hasn’t me hit yet. It seems like I am packing for her to take a long trip, not anything permanent. It will probably hit me soon, but now I am in project mode.
Full disclosure . I cry at Publix commercials so the fact that I’m weepy is not an actual indication of internal turmoil.
Ok, so DS has finally arrived at his Uni after spending a week in NY with his cousin. He seems to be ok, messaged me to say he’d made up his bed and it looked really nice! Hahaha! So relieved he can start settling in now. He’s off on XC camp tomorrow and then back in time for Orientation. It’s all go now, hope he’s diarising!
@carolinamom2boys ask him if you can give his room away and see what he says.
My daughter has been gone 4 years from home and I was offering any room to a nephew if he is willing to come stay with us. She goes you can’t give away my room.
Today I’m researching bike carriers. I was going to borrow one from a friend, but they no longer have it. So, it’s deciding whether to see if someone else has one to borrow, or buying our own. I’ll admit I’m having horrible visions of a bike flying off our vehicle on our semi-cross country trip. 
@LexieAnn Do you have a trailer hitch? This is the carrier we got for D16.
www.amazon.com/Kuat-Bike-Black-Chrome-1-25-Inch/dp/B003RLL3UU
It’s light and folds flat for storage.
@3scoutsmom, we do have a hitch, thanks for the link. I found a few nice ones on craiglist too, if we end up purchasing rather than borrowing. I was briefly thinking of trying to find one for the crossover that gets better gas mileage, but the hitch ones seem more secure. (And, I’m probably fooling myself thinking we could fit everything in the smaller vehicle. I guess we’ll save that for parents weekend.)
@LexieAnn , is that one of the many things REI rents? If you’re a member they rent all kinds of outdoor gear for almost nothing. Try checking with them, and good luck finding one!
So D is at her first day of class. She took “first day of school selfies” and sent them to H and I. It’s amazing to me how much older and self-assured she looks even after just being away for a week. There’s a change in her and she senses it too. She wrote about it on Facebook last night. Some of it is her faith. Some of it is that she’s clearly found her people and is exactly where she belongs.
So I promised the kindergarten first day of school story and here it is:
D’s preschool teachers had urged us to have her test for early kindergarten entrance, which our district allows. They look at academics, emotional and social readiness, and she did pass. It was a weird timeline-testing is done AFTER enrollment is over, so despite there being school choice, you are left with whatever schools still have room if you pass. So we toured several schools that still had spaces that spring before kindergarten. We were not encouraged.
Some teachers openly dissuaded us: “Most kids don’t pass.” “All parents think their child is gifted.” “You could always just go to private school.” Others had no command of the classroom-we watched in one where a boy stood on his desk and dumped a whole box of fish food into the tank while the teacher sat at her desk. In another, the teacher seemed great, but the kids were stacked like cord wood in what had to have been a small meeting room of some sort at one time.
And then we met Ms. F. She told us that parents know their kids best and we should do whatever it took to get D the education she needed. Ironiocally, this was at a “bad” school in a “bad” neighborhood. Ms. F was on her 3rd career, having decided that banking was soul-sucking and that social work left too many kids unreached. As a teacher, she could reach 20 or 30 kids at a time-and chose to work in a minority-heavy school so kids would see a teacher who looked like them. D did pass the screening, and we chose that school and asked for that teacher.
On the first day of school as Ms. F told the parents about her decision to teach, some of them began edging out the door. Some of the kids began to whimper. A few more parents left and a few more kids began to cry. As she wrapped up her speech about expectations and what she hoped to do that year, she suggested that the remaining parents leave. As we headed out the door, some of the kids, including D, began to sob.
“OK. Everyone who’s going to cry real hard, raise their hands,” Ms. F said. D and two others raised their hands. I had tears in my own eyes as we left. Had we made the right decision? Would D be ok? Would she find the cafeteria on the other side of the school? Would she go to the right bathroom?
When I picked up D at the end of the day, she came running out to me, leap into my arms, yelling, “I survived! I survived!” And she did. And she thrived under Ms. F, who always urged to her to do her best, to “do better”. Every year on the first day of school since then, D has greeted me with “I survived!” because every year she’s been nervous about new things and new people and new places.
But not this year. She says she’s at peace and ready and excited for her future. But of course, I am thinking, “She will survive!”
Unless your DC is very attached to their bike (or maybe because they are) it may be better to buy a bike there and store it there over the summers. Do you really want to move it back and forth multiple times?
That being said, I had no idea REI might rent a bike rack. Awesome option!
It will be funny to see if D texts/calls you to say “I survived” @sseamom What a wonderful story and it’s no wonder D wants to teach, especially in a minority heavy school.