<p>I visited Guatemala, my parents weren’t that worried…they worried more
if I went to Rogers Park or Oldtown.</p>
<p>Yes, my kids have the same attitude I had: what the parents don’t know cant hurt the kids. Sometimes we’re better off being left a little bit in the dark.</p>
<p>acme…D2 is a jr…done with the AP testing but unfortunately not with the class…grrrr! Funny how they like to add on more material to keep them busy until mid June! Seriously, another whole month!</p>
<p>Scrapping was fun! Got lots of stuff done. Are scrapbooks and senior posters big around the rest of the country??? The posters are put up in school and and at grad parties with the scrapbooks. The parties around here are HUGE!!!</p>
<p>NorthMinnesota, I can’t say about scrapbooks and senior posters-- I have 3 S’s and they never would tell me anything about that. But S’s girlfriend has never mentioned it so I’m guessing it isn’t a big event. Sounds cute and lots of fun!</p>
<p>Wow, 1 more month for your D2 – after APs-- just seems kind of like they are keeping the kids just to give the teachers more work days, doesn’t it! Hope she can at least relax knowing the worst is over.</p>
<p>Cottonwood, you have to tell people what Rogers Park and Old Town are (and is Old Town really that bad?)</p>
<p>Rogers Park and Old Town are areas of Chicago. My parents would have freaked if I ventured into Englewood, a neighborhood near UChicago campus next to Hyde Park. As far as Old Town? Probably a bit of freaking. Rogers Park? Not as much. Anywhere ALONE? No freaking way.</p>
<p>I had a hard time getting used to my kids riding the NYC subway late at night into Brooklyn etc. When I first moved to the city I didn’t like taking the subway after rush hour. Now I know for a fact my kids routinely head back and forth to Brooklyn into the wee hours of the morning. They’ve been doing this for years, I suppose I should be used to it by now.</p>
<p>Scrapping is a big deal here - some of the moms go crazy on it…I am missing the gene - so I will be putting together a tri-fold poster board and a nice scrapbook but not with all the bells and whistles.</p>
<p>My favorite thing to do is the progression from Kindgarten forward and seeing how much they have changed.</p>
<p>runnersmom, as a suburban Mom it’s a big deal for us the first time we let our kids go into the city alone. :)</p>
<p>Mathmom, I know. We live in the suburbs and my kids’ had to do January internships as part of their HS program. Each decided, of course, to do them in Manhattan when they were in 10th grade. I remember taking the eldest on a dry run for the subway (he had to take Metro North to Grand Central, take the shuttle to the west side and then downtown on the subway to Canal Street) before he started work. Lesson #1…know the uptown tracks from the downtown tracks! I must admit to a sexist reaction when my D, who was 14 at the time, went off to her internship in a similar neighborhood. It was January, it got dark early and she often worked past rush hour. I was a nervous wreck (if you’ve seen my kids’ “Where’s Waldo” travel posts you’d think I’d be used to this by now), but she learned great lessons about living and working in an urban environment. I think it’s helped her a lot now that she’s in college in Chicago. She seems to be a lot more comfortable than a lot of her friends using public transportation and exploring all that the city has to offer her.</p>
<p>No time the past few days to properly keep updated, but good luck to all these wonderful kids on their travels! My two daughters will be going to Israel this summer, so you all can hold vigil with me then.</p>
<p>Scrapbooking is on my list of things to do as an empty nester. All those baby pictures are still sitting in boxes!</p>
<p>runnersmom and mathmom, I know the “commute” you are talking about since I have started to allow my 10th grade boys to make that trip via Metro North into the city. There’s been a little subway riding and a bit of crosstown bus riding thrown in for good measure, but it always still makes me nervous. Their “city” friends go all over the place at all hours of the day and night. Country mouse v. city mouse.</p>
<p>My parents grew up in Evanston–anything south of Howard</p>
<p>(the Chicago border) was no man’s land to them. Parents loosen</p>
<p>up with subsequent kids. Old Town was a tourist area, even then and</p>
<p>Rogers Park is on Lake Michigan, the far north side of Chicago.</p>
<p>Worse still, by the time I was old enough to go to Riverview, it was</p>
<p>gone. Riverview was a seedy but charming old fashioned (or just old)</p>
<p>amusement park. Now it just a shopping mall/condo area. </p>
<p>but charming old fashioned amusement</p>
<p>Hi everyone. I am also just starting to let D travel into the city (NY) with friends. Although I am nervous about it, I can’t let my worries hold her back. H is way worse than I am, probably because I went to school in Manhattan and he grew up on LI. This Saturday, she is supposed to go in with a large group of friends and they are planning to stay from noon until midnight. My guess is that they will get bored long before midnight though. 12 hours of wandering around the city with no plans just seems crazy to me. At least Saturday is supposed to be a gorgeous day in NY.</p>
<p>Another one familiar with this commute (and another one whose kids use MetroNorth to do it). </p>
<p>I think you’re right, LIMOM - they’re likely to be bored before their appointed time. But the group thing is certainly the way we let D and S1 ease into navigating the trip itself and the city. </p>
<p>The thing I’ve always stressed with both D and S1 is that they should never be just a “passenger” - that they should always be thinking about where they’re going and how they’re getting there, not just following whoever’s walking in front. We’ve also gone over the “evens go east, odds go west” rule of thumb with them dozens of times since they were little, plus major landmarks, so that they could figure out where Grand Central was, and which direction daddy’s office was (daytime safe-haven and clean bathrooms!). I’m sure you’ve done much the same. </p>
<p>Thanks to the “on the train, otw home” texts, I’m usually able to muster up a front of calm by the time they walk in the door.</p>
<p>One of my least favorite phone calls was when D called and said, “Mom, Broadway is so busy at 3 a.m. I had absolutely no fear walking from N’s dorm to my dorm alone.”</p>
<p>Sigh.</p>
<p>I said, “I know you’re going to do these things, but do you have to tell me?”</p>
<p>D started going into the city very young for dance and many of her friends navigated alone, so I just had to get used to it.</p>
<p>I worked in Manhattan at fifteen and made the commute myself so I really didn’t have a leg to stand on, unless anxiety produces an extra leg. If so, I was an octopus.</p>
<p>Good advice, Harriet. I feel pretty confident that D can find her way around the city - even in the Village and SOHO, if they venture down that way. I’m not sure about the subways and have no clue if they plan to take the subway (but I hope not). </p>
<p>mythmom - that phone call would have scared me too. I also started going into the city when I was young - and I had to go through East New York and Bed-Stuy which were very dangerous neighborhoods back then (maybe still, I don’t know if they’ve improved since then). It’s hard for me to tell D she can’t take the LIRR into the city, when I was taking the A train when I was younger than she is.</p>
<p>I started letting the guys take the subway into town around freshman year – the dentist is near a station, both can hop a train from near their schools and meet us in town, etc. With cell phones, I don’t worry much, and they are good about keeping me updated. We’ve been hauling them around various cities and places since they were babies, so they are pretty savvy travelers.</p>
<p>S has flown several times to various schools and taken the 55 bus solo from Midway to UChicago a couple of times now – if he wasn’t comfortable with that, then he’d have to do some thinking about what kind of environment he wants. However, he is perfectly happy NOT to get his driver’s license, so public transit is fine by him.</p>
<p>Update from Uzbekistan…phone rings at 9:30pm tonight and not thinking anything of it my H answers. It’s the boy, from Samarkand with an Italian lilt to his speech! Now you have to understand that 9:30pm our time is 6:30am his time. The only way this boy has seen 6:30am voluntarily in the last 10 years is if he’s still up from the night before! But apparently the temperature reaches close to 100f by 2pm, so they start very early. He’s really enjoying both his “colleagues”, all from Italy, and the experience. As he said, “yesterday I spent my time scraping 1,000 year old dirt off the fortress wall, how cool is that?!” Hard to get many details from my usually non-communicative son in the short time I’ve budgeted for each phone call, but boy was it great to hear his very tired voice!
NYC subway - Samarkand, Uzbekistan…I should be ready for this.</p>
<p>runnersmom, woo-hoo, I’m glad to hear that your son made it to his destination safely and is happy! That’s the most important thing. You might get a bunch of interesting stories especially about traditional Uzbek food. 100 degrees or not, the tea is always hot and the food is very fatty (think of 1/2-inch layer of fat covering your soup). And it can get very warm down there. Have you seen those thick, long robes Uzbeks wear in the summer? They protect their bodies from the heat, since the outside temperature can be higher than normal body temperature. If your son ventures out into a local marketplace to shop for souvenirs or fruit, he has to bargain. Accepting the “sticker” price used to be considered as a sign of disrespect towards the seller. But things change, so it could be different now :)</p>