@Knowsstuff you should know that I turned down U of M for undergrad in favor of MSU 
I now have 2 going on 3 degrees from U of M but I’m still a Spartan at heart.
Your like the ultimate State of Michigan, superfan ?
Thanks so much for sharing your photos and videos of Ren.
What a sweetheart, and the best way to put a smile on one’s face during these difficult times.
When I’m not getting updated photos/videos of my grandkids, I can always get my fix looking at photos of Ren. Thank you.
UMich is a good school, but it’s not for everyone (especially not for undergrad). I am proud to say that I have lived in Michigan my whole life & honestly don’t care who wins UM-MSU games (gasp!). Heck, my Michigan-based alma mater doesn’t even have collegiate sports. But seriously, good for you for starting a MET. We know several people whose kids started college in the late 2000’s. If it hadn’t been for their METs, the parents’ layoffs would have put college out of reach.
I truly am glad to share him with you guys. Like I told a few people privately, since we’re all on lockdown, this is how I’m sharing him with everyone close to us. I really have not much else to do other than take and share pictures since we never leave the house and Mr R and I are both on a type of leave.
If this thread ever gets shut down (there’s discussion on another thread about whether or not this is appropriate for CC because it’s not college related), I’ll still post pictures and I would try to figure out a way to post updates in the album.
@kelsmom and some others know this but I had to put myself through undergrad because my parents were very poor (both were disabled by the time I was in high school - my dad from a terrible car accident and my mom from rapidly debilitating health issues). In Michigan, we don’t have a lot of aid (or, we didn’t at the time - both MSU and U of M’s financial aid have gotten infinitely better for poor kids in the last decade) and our public unis are some of the most expensive in the nation (it was already over 25-30k when I went there for both tuition & R&B). I don’t want my kid to have to work full time and go to school full time like I did so I’m going to try and save as aggressively as possible. Which is tough considering we’re paying off our own loans and whatnot but we’re going to try.
And hey, maybe he’ll want to be a tradesman like his grandpa and forego college all together. Who knows? But this way at least he will have options. Hopefully 
Side note. For the record, sure it’s a college based forum. But we have numerous threads not specifically about college. Recipes, pantyhose, internet prefs, furniture, snoring, splitting the restaurant bill, vacations, it goes on and on. Some posters seem only to start personal threads (I don’t want to risk id’ing some who seem to only start or show up in non-college threads.)
This thread is about family, just as the Parents Caring for Parents is. Or the weddings thread. We’re a like group, similar in values, etc, and some posters bond. I like that.
Maybe the distinction shouldn’t be limiting us to topics about college, but the folks who never ever contribute to a thread about college. (I don’t even know if those posters even care about college related issues.) Big difference.
No moderator or administrator has ever brought up the idea of closing this thread.
@MaineLonghorn sorry if I implied that - I didn’t mean to :). I just wanted to get that note in just in case.
Oh, good. I didn’t want you to worry!
I never saw any objections to this thread because it was not “college-related”. Where did you see that?
It’s in here somewhere. Good luck finding it. ? http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/2184158-pandemic-megathreads-and-moderation.html#latest
This is the Parent Cafe- any topic. Refreshing to have a long running thread about something positive. There have been some remarkable long running threads about cancer journeys in the past.
That post reference above was from a member overwhelmed by pandemic threads. Simple solution- ignore those topics and leave them for those who need to read/write more than you care to hear. There is nothing in the rules requiring anyone to read anything they don’t choose to. Heck, I only skim/scan most news today because 90% is about the infamous virus. A decade from now historians will be able to look back at life as it is now and have plenty to write papers about.
So I don’t contribute to or participate in any college-related threads these days, since both of my kids graduated at least a decade ago. Is that a problem??
@VerryHappy. I only mentioned it because Rom seemed to hint there was some trouble brewing. I wanted to state, early, that I support these sorts of family related threads. Rom explanined. ML said she isn’t aware of this. Wis75 added a comment.
That’s good enough for me to suggest we not worry. Not at this point. Not take the focus off the baby.
Some non-college threads are downright helpful. Some give a moment of humor. The ones that bug me are so personal, so specific, that it’s hard to imagine them getting anything other than other posters’ very personal responses. Eg, do you wear patterned or plain underwear? Huh? What time do you feed your pets? (These are made up, still trying not to make it obvious where I’m pointing a finger.)
I’d like to say sorry for my off track post and I hope we won’t take too much attention away from Ren and our affection for him.
The off topic thread closing was my fault. I didn’t mean for it to be a big deal, just an FYI. ?
It’s so weird. I can physically feel him getting bigger. We’re going to be out of newborn clothes soon. It’s weird to me that he’s measuring so small on growth charts. I’m 6’ and Mr is 6’2" so we’ll see what happens.
Since I still haven’t sent out thank you notes (they’re done but since mail is already only every other day here, I’m heeding the request to only send essential mail - we’ve already bought stamps, just trying not to add to the volume!), I’m putting up pictures of us reading the books to Ren that we’ve been gifted.
Wait – what???
True. How would any of us ever manage to shop for new appliances without the CC parent cafe?
Which part? lol
Most of the metro Detroit area is only getting mail every other day. Here’s a story on it: https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2020/04/michigan-mail-delivery-slows-as-coronavirus-hits-postal-service-workers.html
I don’t actually know if they’ve made a public call to only send essential mail (I thought they did but now I can’t find a story about it) but I have a friend who works in a processing facility and he privately (Facebook) asked if we could do that. There’s just not enough people to handle the load right now.
Mail is extremely slow. I sent a few thing using priorty mail that should take 3 days. 9 days later it’s still moving through the system