<p>Ha ha. The oldest boy actually e-mailed and said he enjoyed being home. He has mellowed a lot! He’s 25.</p>
<p>Oh yes, they do get better… but that boy thing… I’m for 29; 39 for Steeler fans.</p>
<p>My eldest S, 21, actually did something over his break. He applied to be away at a camp all summer… with this new girlfriend. ARGH!!! Well, they’ll be relatively apart (it’s a boyscout deal in northern Michigan), but geez! She’s been the gf for all of what, 4 weeks? And 3 weeks of the relationship have been conducted solely though email/facebook/phone - and the sappiest cards that have ever graced my mailbox.</p>
<p>I’ll have an Iron City (beer - don’t bother, it’s awful) with that vodka, please.</p>
<p>I just realized I haven’t heard from S#2 since he left a week ago. I’m just assuming he & girlfriend made it safely to school from her house. </p>
<p>Worst case scenario–they both decided to drop out of school and are living with her parents. :eek:</p>
<p>Edit–I did hear from him, but he wasn’t at school yet.</p>
<p>Living with her parents - does that mean they can pick up part of his tuition?</p>
<p>It would mean a 6 hour commute to his present school or a transfer to a new school. And yes, they would be welcome to pick up all of the tuition.</p>
<p>LOL.</p>
<p>Mothers were NOT like this on 1950’s TV shows:).</p>
<p>I wouldn’t talk like this if I thought he had REALLY dropped out of…</p>
<p>I’m calling him today.</p>
<p>Edit: I have emailed, of course. But this noncommunicative S hasn’t answered & I haven’t been put out enough to follow up with a phone call.</p>
<p>mommusic: I tried the email thing with my S too, and he did not respond. So, I neglected to make his tuition payment (“You never called to remind me.”). That seemed to do the trick, though it took a reminder episode in December. Funny, he smartened up in a hurry.</p>
<p>Now ferrets, they learn right away!</p>
<p>Well, gotta come up with a better plan for keeping the hamster alive. </p>
<p>Something other than, “Girls, make sure you keep your bedroom door shut.” </p>
<p>I was on the phone, and I heard a crash – that awful crash sound that you hear every once in awhile when you have kids in the house. Except no kids in the house, so I knew what it was. </p>
<p>So, I ran upstairs, and saw the open bedroom door and there was the hamster cage, on the floor of the bedroom. Hamster was still sitting in the bottom part, which had separated from the top in the fall from the top of the dresser. The hamster was sitting there, stunned, and the cat was looking down at it from the top of the dresser. </p>
<p>So, I went after the cat first. He knew he was being a bad boy and skedaddled out of there before I could get him by the scruff of his furry neck. </p>
<p>So hamster is now back in the cage, and the bedroom door is shut, while I figure out a better solution to this living arrangement. I think the cage is a little too big to put in the cupboard, like we did with the fish to keep it safe. But, maybe not . . .</p>
<p>One son writes, I think I need glasses, what do I do? Geez, he was just home for about a month, why didn’t he mention it then, when he could have made an eye appointment at our HMO and get a prescription? Would have been too easy, I guess.</p>
<p>OMG I am dying thinking about the fish in the cupboard!!! Why is that so funny??</p>
<p>One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish.</p>
<p>Fish in the cupboard, fish in the bowl.</p>
<p>Hamster in the… (where’s Dr. Seuss when you need him?)</p>
<p>I also thought of Dr. Seuss. I imagine the hamster running, covered in pink ink, through the house…</p>
<p>I used to call my kids Thing 1 and Thing 2 on certain days.</p>
<p>Some people call my twins Thing 1 and Thing 2 'cause they can’t tell 'em apart.</p>
<p>How about Hamster in the bathroom? Most cats don’t seem overly interested in places with lots of water. And, it makes burial at sea so convenient…</p>
<p>(I can’t believe I wrote that!)</p>
<p>:eek:</p>
<p>My cat never minded the bathroom so long as the water stayed safely in the toilet, bathtub or sink where it belonged. And the addition of a hamster would have made it an interesting room indeed…</p>
<p>For some reason I keep having visions of a rodent chorus line.</p>
<p>Marmots, ferrets, hamsters, all with chorus girl spangled leotards and ruffled tutus, high kicking their way across the stage in perfect synchronization.</p>
<p>I am a sick, sick woman.</p>
<p>Quick hamster story: when I was 11, my mother had to have major dental work done and in an effort to keep 8 children quiet, gave us $5 and told us to go to the 5&10 until she was finished. So, rather than buying cokes at the fountain, we bought a hamster, food for it, and a lot of gum. My mom was pretty groggy and never bothered to ask us what we’d purchased at the store - or maybe she just saw a lot of kids blowing bubbles and figured we’d just bought gum. Anyway, we didn’t tell her about Jody the Hamster.</p>
<p>Well, we didn’t quite have enough money to get a cage, so we put Jody in a shoe box and he lived in the Girls’ Room for about 5 days. So, baby sister wakes up and notices that Jody is missing!!! We search the room diligently, including underwear drawers and a basket of white socks which we kept in the corner (Jody was mostly white). No luck. We finally had to tell my mother that there MIGHT be a hamster loose in the house. </p>
<p>As luck would have it, my father was asleep on the screen porch and when my eldest sis went outside, there was Jody perched on my father’s hat!!! Hamster saved, and we put him in the bird cage (bird died year before - eaten by eldest bro’s pet lizard). A week later, after we had lost all interest in the hamster, my dad reached in to pet Jody, who had been friendly up until that time. Well, that danged hungry hamster bit my dad’s index finger and Dad had to get 2 stitches. </p>
<p>Worst day of my 6th grade year was when, the very next morning, I found Jody dead in the cage. We always said he’d bitten my dad and died because of the meanness of my father’s blood. (Actually, he strangled on the exercise wheel, but the poisoned-blood story sounded so completely cool in the mid-60’s)</p>
<p>fencersmom, back AWAY from the animals!!</p>
<p>“exercise wheel of DEATH!!”</p>
<p>Funny…</p>
<p>Am losing interest in CC. SA and the art school forum are the only places I check in on, and it is becoming infrequent.</p>
<p>Also, fencersmom, I just noticed you are also from SW PA. I am a city boy, in the East End.</p>
<p>"put him in the bird cage (bird died year before - eaten by eldest bro’s pet lizard). ", then “Actually, he strangled on the exercise wheel”</p>
<p>Clearly that was a haunted bird cage!</p>