This is a vent. A very long vent. S25’s graduation was yesterday, and it was a comedy of errors. Some of this y’all know (cords and diploma) but I’m going to put it all out there in one place.
My parents all bailed on graduation. Mostly reasonable excuses, but still. S23 is studying abroad in South Africa, so he missed it too. I sent them all the link to livestream. I know S23, my mother and stepmother all watched. No idea about my father. Only S23 sent him a congratulatory message. I’m just shocked that none of his grandparents reached out with a text. It’s really unlike them.
We wanted to give him a monogrammed sterling belt buckle and alligator belt. I purchased them over a month ago. I sent DH to pick up the buckle on Friday. It wasn’t ready. It turns out the engraver passed away before he could finish it. Several trips back to the shop resulted in a loaner that he could wear to graduation. Monday, the morning of graduation, he opened his gifts. The alligator strap is the wrong size. I purchased and was billed for the correct size but they put the wrong one in the box. I race back up there and they give me the correct size. Only it wasn’t. It was the same wrong size, but by then there was no time to fix it. He wore a different belt. I went back up there this morning, and they have no alligator belts in his size. They’re going to have to do a special order. (The store with the belts couldn’t have been nicer. The silver store, not so much. I won’t go into it, but I’ll never set foot in that store again.)
As you know, the school ran out of an honor cord and medal that he had earned. Some kids got theirs but not everyone did. They assured me they’d have them at the ceremony. He got the cord but no medal.
Somehow they lost his diploma. He graduated, but there was nothing in the presentation case. We’ll be able to pick it up at the school at some point.
I ordered a cake with his college logo. I was supposed to pick it up the morning of graduation but with the belt drama I forgot. I remembered on the way home. Waze said we’d get to the bakery at 5:05, and they close at 5:00. My phone calls went unanswered. Panic ensues! Luckily for me they were still there when we arrived, and I got the cake. And then, on the way to the restaurant, my wheelchair slid forward when DH had to stop short, and it was crushed. (I’m temporarily in a wheelchair due to a bad leg break a couple of weeks ago.)
If you made it through all that, I’m impressed! I was a long day with many missteps, but he graduated!
We go to pick up S25 college announcements, we only get 25, I asked if like my older son we could get more and they said not this year because they are all personalized.
1 set of grandparents, 7 siblings, 6 adult nieces & nephews, keepsake for me that’s 15, I only have 10left. So my MIL says “let me know if you need any of my or dad’s siblings addys”, okay well there are 13 of them. I haven’t seen most of them in years and several of them would have no freaking idea who my kids even are. That also means I have none for my close friends, etc. So I said to her “I don’t think I can do all of them, may have to leave some out” and she say “can’t you just make a copy of it and give it to IMMEDIATE FAMILY”. Umm, not giving my freaking siblings who see my kids every month a cheap paper copy. Are you high?
It’s just so frustrating. It’s my damn kid. I wish his high school would just let us purchase more. The add more issues, my nephew goes to the same HS, so I have to coordinate with them to make sure none of the same people get the plan B I came up with which was using my cricut to make a slightly less version but certainly nicer than a damn photocopy.
Oh no! What a slew of things! Hopefully it will eventually become one of those stories that everyone laughs at about how All The Things went wrong… but end of the day he graduated, and you were with him, and even crushed cake is still cake!
Last night was the end of season Track Celebration. (They aren’t doing food this year, so it’s no longer a “banquet”. This is only notable because the number of messages we’ve gotten about “remember, no food” is kind of hysterical. The freshman mom that I am friendly with was all “what’s with all the no food stuff?” and all I could do was laugh.)
It was a good night guys. They called up all the kids who got letters, and my guy, literally the only upperclassman to NOT have a new personal best in anything this year, got the loudest cheer. He never did quite come back from the hamstring tear. His times in the sprints and distances in the jumps never got better than his sophomore year bests. But he put so much time and energy into helping the rest of the team, and his teammates recognized that.
Then they announced the award winners and guys, my kid got the coaches award. It’s for being a good teammate, essentially. For being a peer leader, for encouraging and mentoring the other athletes, for doing all the things that help a team be successful and for having a positive attitude. It felt so so good to see that his coaches recognized his value to the team. Each week they announce the kids who have had new personal bests and it has just sucked to not see his name mentioned at all for two years, and to watch him try his heart out to rehab and to come back, and for it to just not click enough while his friends are achieving the goals that they set together, but without him. It hurts to watch sometimes. But it was so great to see his other contributions valued last night.
Then at the end, they call the seniors up and the new junior captains “pass the final baton”. The school orders batons that are personalized with the school name and logo and their graduation year for each senior as a keepsake. So after being called up and lining up the seniors process through, receiving a final hand off from the juniors, then going through the line to shake hands with all the coaches. It’s a really sweet and heartfelt sendoff.
It was a really nice end to what has been an alternately fun but really challenging four years.
Being happier about consciously deciding to not buy graduation announcements for any of my kids every cycle, because every cycle has stories like this.
Oh I definitely wouldn’t be withdrawing early - unfortunately our bill is due June 1. (We’re doing a study abroad first semester, so things are happening a little earlier than normal.) C25 has even already chosen classes - they did that a couple weeks ago, a long with a visa application. Onward to Seville, then to W&M in January!
Will spray starch work? I use that for very stubborn wrinkles, but usually on cotton.
Seems perfectly normal to me! Use one for normal stress and tack on the second for “Defcon 3” level stress. Now that I’m thinking about it, maybe I have a touch of the shopping thing going too. We have had like 7 Amazon packages delivered with varying grad party decor. I can’t decide which plates and cups to get so got like 3 sets. I mean honestly, who even cares, but the agony of the decision has taken up a lot of my time and distracted me from other worries (see 529 withdrawal!).
We ditched the official school grad announcement, it was like $80 for 25 announcements! We did Shutterfly instead. Added a senior pic of C25, school logo and grad party info. Voila! We liked those much better anyway.
I am so happy for him and all of you that they recognized him in that way. I know it has been such a struggle this year. So glad that the night could occur with such a positive energy boost for him! And now I have tears in my eyes again!
That’s wonderful and congratulations! I can understand how much that means in the context of kids who had their struggles during HS.
Similar story here. S25 received the Varsity’s Coaches’ Award. In the speech, the head coach said he is the athlete every coach wants to have. That he is always there supporting his teammates, never misses practice, always checking in with his teammates when he notices something is off, and always cheering them up. The athlete that when asked what event(s) he wants to swim at a meet, answers “whatever the team needs, coach”.
If you’ve seen some of my other posts, we had so many challenges in the last four years. There were times we (parents) thought S25 wasn’t going to make it.
This week is like a bandaid being very very slowly pulled off. Sports ceremony, baccalaureate ceremony, senior lunch, yearbooks, etc. Graduation is Friday and THEN next Friday is senior walk at elementary school and the reuniting of the five boys that all went to separate middle schools along with all their parents!! Ugh, the tears and emotions just keep on coming.
I seem to be using wine and salt to drown my emotions after every ceremony. One every night this week and then family starts arriving tomorrow for ceremony Friday - so much for that weight I was planning to lose by graduation.
Our school only does cords (no stoles) and limits each kid to two. There are ten to choose from - athletics, service, nhs, humanities focus, environment /wilderness focus, 7yrs (all) at the school, stem focus, arts focus, world language focus, and affinity groups. The kids pick the distinctions and colors in early spring each year. So basically everyone has two to wear that is specific to their interests/time at school.
My daughter is FINALLY getting excited! She updated her Instagram profile to include her college name…she is talking to potential roommates…she is telling people where she is going and she is proud of her choice! It’s wonderful to witness.
Yay! That is great to witness! My son chose a path that wasn’t expected and that doesn’t start quite as he had planned but made sense. He was far from excited about the whole thing. But then I started noticing that his friends parents knew and then insta profile had it included and today he’s wearing college merch to school! So great and a relief for sure. Congrats!
My D25’s school doesn’t do such things, so I made a quick announcement myself for close relatives who like to hang it on the fridge (they all live far away across the country and won’t be attending graduation, as it’s held in a tiny space with only 28 grads). Had it printed at Walgreens same day with a 50% off coupon.
(TL; DR: graduation for D25 came with a whimper instead of a bang, but she’s done!)
A hack if you want to not cry when your child graduates:
Have your child get so far behind in classes that you question whether aliens have abducted your 4.0 kid who had a color-coded planner. Add your kid mentioning a week ago that she has a “D” in a class that can be raised if she does more work, as the deadlines in this class don’t exist, but see aforementioned “so far behind”. Also have your family move houses the weekend before all the classes need to be done, so everyone is surrounded by boxes and unsettled. (Note: all the boxes will be good for you, since you will have something with which to occupy all free moments on the days when she is cramming to get things done.) Also have both your kid, her sibling, and you get sick in the days and weeks surrounding all of this. Finally, have your kid sleep <10 hours over three days as she locks herself in her room eating some food, but mostly sugar and energy drinks (sigh) to get her through the last 72 hours, culminating with a submission at midnight that didn’t go through because the portal closed (but that the teacher did accept when she immediately emailed it to her).
I am living proof that you will merely repeat “Thank you, God” over and over when your spouse wakes you at 1am to let you know that it all got in and she graduated. The killer point for me is that her grades are actually reasonable now (lower than her normal, but nothing anyone would sneeze at for any accepted college); I was prepping to have to watch her send an email explaining her grades to admissions.
Unforeseen sequellae may include:
*a grandparent very concerned her grandkid is not going to graduate that you need to talk off a cliff
*headaches/jaw aching from clenching your teeth at night due to stress
*a family affair where the world revolves around her getting things done for multiple days
*not attending a grad ceremony to finish said work (in this case, this wasn’t a big deal. Her school is very spread out and she would not have known anyone at the ceremony).
*potential increased tears at college drop off because no emotional energy was dispersed at high school graduation
It hasn’t really hit anyone in our house that she’s done, but she is. It isn’t how we pictured it, but perhaps this is another life lesson: things don’t always come out the way you expect them to. (With that said, I am grateful that S27’s school is set up so differently that this end would be hard to replicate. There will be other surprises, I’m sure, but not this.)
Congratulations to all your class of 2025 students! I’m glimpsing a new era for D25, and excitement starts now.
We don’t do HS announcements here either- I have never gotten one either though think it is a fun tradition. I was almost swayed into it by Shutterfly ads
Shutterfly is great! We ordered the grad announcements, party invites, and thank you cards all through them. Where we live grad announcements are a ‘thing’, but the school has nothing to do with creating or ordering them. It’s interesting how traditions are so different depending on what part of the country you live in!
Do they go to the same people that would be on holiday card list? Like relatives and family friends? I can see that being nice. I decided to just add a grad picture to holiday card
I think I had the for college, but it was just a few I think (maybe 10 were free?) but have zero recall what we did with them lol.
