@dyiu13 my BFF is going to Chicago and she’s a mixture of both.
@palm715 So happy everything went well with your move-in. I love the quote! You made me go back and look at all the pictures we’ve taken of my sweet girl sleeping…beautiful baby pictures…pictures returning from camps when she just couldn’t keep her eyes open…pictures when she’s snuggling with one of us and, yes, one as she slept peacefully in the bed with a comfy mattress in the hotel the night before we dropped her off at GW.
My daughter is going to a quarter system school. Her move-in day is in two weeks–finally!! This has seemed like the never-ending summer. It’s probably been the longest summer break she’s had since starting kindergarten. I’m not complaining, and neither is she!
@dyiu13 @sseamom @carolinamom2boys @HappyFace2018 @livinginLA @me29034 @EastGrad @arisamp - I can’t thank you enough for all your support. It’s so nice to hear from all of you and makes me feel better just knowing people care and understand. Majority of students from Zimbabwe, head down to South Africa for uni and can fly home every couple of months for long weekends etc so most of the parents here don’t understand the feelings that come with sending your child halfway across the world on a one way ticket, and then to top it off having to cope with the lack of communications.
I’m sure it’ll improve, haven’t heard from him since Wednesday but have his ‘business’ email password (which he gave me a while ago - he has a separate personal email address I can’t see) so I’ve been “stalking” him and seen that he has changed majority of his courses and been awarded credit for his A levels so a huge change around in his schedule. I see that he has managed to go for 3 interviews and got all 3 jobs, turned one down and has kept the other two. I see from other people’s Facebook posts and pictures that he didn’t run in the XC meet yesterday because he’s still injured. I know some of you will frown on me for stalking but I find if he wants his independence this is a good way for me to only see what’s happening without interfering and fulfill my curiosity and see “proof of life” as I like to call it! Anyway it seems he’s very busy and seems to be coping so well with his new found independence which makes me so proud of him. Its just sore to not be a part of it but I think you’re all correct in saying he’s probably enjoying his independence and I think he wants to prove that he can cope on his own without help.
Thank you x
@zimmum My S communicates less than I would prefer, but he agreed to a weekly phone call on Sundays at his convenience. You’d think that today’s technology would make it so easy to stay in touch via text, but he only responds to maybe half my texts (one word response!). I felt better after the 1st time I talked to him. He doesn’t use FaceBook, Twitter, Instgram or SnapChat so I can’t even “stalk” him! I would be nice to get a glimpse of his daily life.
@zimmum I, for one, completely admit to checking everything. I have access to and check her GW email account, her GW student account, her GW GET account (which allows me to see her GWorld Card and Colonial Cash balance and spending history), her banking debit card account, her location on IPhone “find my phone” app and her personal Gmail accounts (which includes her high school GMail account when she was applying to college to make sure she didn’t miss any important due dates while she was studying for her IB exams). She has given me access to all of this information. She’s never had an issue at all with this access but when we discussed the medical power of attorney/attorney-in-fact documents and why it was needed she made sure we had access to information. I have one friend who thinks I’m intruding (especially with the “Find my phone” app). Do I access all of them all the time? No. But I can if I need to.
When I told my daughter this she said “momma, I have nothing to hide and you are paying for college, putting money in my bank account and paying for me health care and I am going to be 10 hours away so it’s all good”. So yeah…it will be this way until she turns 26 (graduates from grad school or law school and gets married).
Update: @RyanG1207 I am also Facebook friends with my sweet girl…can see her Twitter and Instagram accounts but don’t “follow” her and I haven’t figured out the whole SnapChat thing yet (even though she’s tried to teach me…although my BFF and I SnapChat each other often).
I awoke to find an email from D titled, Don’t worry, everything’s OK!
So of course my heart starts to race! It turns out that she experienced her first earthquake. It was strong enough to wake her up but no damage.
@3scoutsmom When I had to go to public safety earlier in the week, I said the same thing to my mom
@3scoutsmom - it says in news that it was felt even in Texas.
I’m doing well. I saw my mom today. We went out to lunch, ran some errands, and then I went home for about an hour. It was so much harder than I thought it would be. My room didn’t even feel like home. It felt empty
@palm715 So glad your trip to Boston and drop off went well. Sounds like everything is working out for your D. Hope your trip home was uneventful.
@zimmum Sounds like you are doing a great job dealing with your S being so far away and keeping up with him as best you can. My S is also not a great communicator - he just does not see the need. Unfortunately, that extends to Facebook so I have no way to follow what is going on with him. He did call me today to talk him through his first time doing laundry. Three phone calls later (which he kept short and limited to my answering his laundry questions) I got him to somewhat commit to call on Sunday night. Maybe think of things with your S as no news is good news. The only other calls I’ve had from my son involve issues with his classes. I think when things are going well, they often don’t call. As others have written, your S may feel that talking to you will bring forward any homesickness he has. Hopefully, he will soon be more willing to have regular conversations. I doubt that will happen with my S, but we are going to continue to insist on at least one weekly call.
@readingclaygirl Glad you had a nice time with your mom. Hope things continue to go well for you.
Boy, do I love FaceTime.
We text almost every day, mostly working through questions, etc. so it is so nice to see DS’s face & hear his voice as we catch up- been talking 1 time a week.
As we all adjust to this new experience- hopefully everyone will get into a routine and figure out a the best method and frequency of communication for the year.
I FaceTimed for the first time ever today. D took me shopping with her as she went to Goodwill and held up all the things she was looking to buy. Then I helped her “sort” out the clothes like we usually do together when we go thrifting. It was fun to see her actual face and see the gestures she makes as she talks. She also texted several times later on as she had laundry questions that were the result of the shopping trip: “How do you wash tie dye?” and “This dress is ‘dry clean only’ so what do I do?” Then texted to say she’d forgotten that she didn’t have any extra hangers. I hear from her a lot on Saturdays…
Weekdays she usually texts a few times a day and calls every other day or so with a nice long chat, unless something comes up. She’s very chatty as am I, so not really surprised. We don’t track or ask for passwords, or insist on “friending” or “following” D, but if she wasn’t so communicative, our position might be different. But she does have us both on her FB and includes us often in her posts.
H and I had a very nice, lazy day, although it still feels like I’m missing a limb. I imagine that will continue for some time.
Do any of your kiddos have room inspections? D was cleaning up this afternoon because a room inspection for “cleanliness” was going to be happening later on. My junior year roommate and I would never have passed-we were both, let’s say, comfortable with the lived-in look. D was happy because she likes cleaning-as long as it’s not her actual bedroom at home.
We had several text pictures and videos from D today from the Pitt -Villanova football game. She was obviously having a great time so it made us happy.
We’ve had a fair amount of communication this week with what I would characterize as “start-up” issues. There was the missing books that I wrote about earlier, then she found she needed a couple pieces of technology that we hadn’t anticipated. Now that these are all solved I wonder if it will taper off. I hope not, but I suspect it will.
I have not posted a while… but thought I would chime in with the parents here who have dropped their kids off and now miss them…
We took d to college last weekend that was a 5 hour drive from us. We have a medium and a small car so we took both to fit everything in. She has a smaller room with limited storage, so we brought a cabinet for storage to fit under the bed. We were able to do a leisurely move-in since we put in a timely request for early move-in and ended up spending two nights there. We got her a plush rug, hung some semi-sheer curtain, and a small futon in neutral colors to share with her roomie and make it more homey. Somehow I felt better leaving her if she had comfortable surroundings.
We then had to drive home separately- which was somewhat hard to do given both my husband and I were pretty sad about leaving her. I am pretty sure her father cried on the way home. I didn’t say anything though because I was afraid we would just wallow in sadness if we focused on it too much. My husband was particularly sad when he came home from grocery store on Sunday, stating he was wondering how it was possible that she grew-up so fast; that he always used to take her to the store with him to buy her treats. As she got older she no longer accompanied him, but he was always looking for some special treat she might like. He said that now there is very little to get at the grocery store since it is just the two of us. What made it even harder when we got home late Saturday was that the place where we board our dog does not have Sunday pick-up, so we had no dog either for the rest of the weekend. I know it sounds silly, but the dog really does help. We were both pretty glum on Sunday and we both seemed to cheer up a little on Monday after I picked up our dog.
The first few days were difficult, somewhat improved with the help of the company of the dog. I think that I might have been reaching borderline definition for depression. I found that chocolate helps.
My d was trying to get her class schedule before classes started on Wednesday because she got closed out of some classes and was undecided if she wanted to decline a few of her AP credits. She called me for advice on that matter and again over the ongoing break-up with the boyfriend.
I am very surprised that she continues to call me for advice on some school classes, honors options, research position, etc… It has made me feel included. However, I realize this will likely end as she continues to get more and more independent. I am hoping that she continues to seek advice or contact me for whatever the reason…
I spent some time before she left planning on selling our house because I knew it would feel empty when she left. However, she told me she was hoping we would stay a little longer so she could feel that she was coming back home during her school breaks. Also, I gave it some thought and I think it would be really nice if we waited to sell once we get some idea of where she might settle down and move close to her at that time. So… I feel like we will just sit and wait…
Room inspections- I know that sometimes randomly rooms get inspected for fire code violations but that’s it. FaceTime- we love it. I call my mom about 2x a day now and one of those might be FaceTime- I like seeing my dog. Plus we text if something comes up. I do tell her most things although there is a barrier
My DD is in texting with me every few hours. She used to discussing daily activities with me in a short text: from conflict with her class schedule to steak and lobster dinner she had for the first time at sorority house (her comments about lobster "Lobster is a lot of work for very little pleasure " :))
I am glad they gave them this week on campus before classes start to have fun and burn their energy. I hope she will normalize her daily schedule somehow because no one can survive on so little sleep. I suspect when classes start on Wednesday she will not get much sleep because she will be working on p-sets all night.
I literally just called public safety and it’s past one in the morning. There was a girl passed out in the bathroom so I let them know. It sorta freaked me out.
DH called D16 this morning and when I discovered him talking with her, i asked him to put it on speakerphone. Instead, he passed his phone to me. I could hear there was zero interest in talking with me. So, eventually, I gave up. Felt awful.
So glad it was beautiful weather and I spent the rest of the day working in the yard.
Like sseamom says, it’s like a missing limb. A phantom limb, too.
@readingclaygirl I am sorry you had to experience this unpleasant part of college life so soon.
@dyiu13 The separation is probably very hard for your DD as well and everyone reacts differently to stress. She probably needs more time.