<p>Beards? Beards? You mean my S who is a soph in HS will be growing a beard in a few years? Omigod. A beard? I need to meditate.</p>
<p>lauras50, I think the water at Rice may be tinged with something that pushes towards non-conforming to Texas styles! (maybe the fact that there are no frats) My S’s best friend is a freshman at Rice and has really loved it, and his gf has loved her semester there too, but is anxious to get back to Tulane. I have heard some funny stories about this past semester at Rice, seems they have some pretty outrageous parties!</p>
<p>Alumother, you’ll be lucky if he doesn’t come home with a tattoo or nose/lip ring. After seeing some of the previously clean cut catholic school boys my S went to hs with, I was glad that all he had was the beard and wild mop on top of his head. I am sure many moms were a little freaked out when they saw their little darlings! But don’t worry, most of the boys still look the same for the most part, and even the freaky looking ones are doing great in college, happy, healthy and making decent grades.</p>
<p>Oh yes I forgot, she had dyed her hair. Seemed fairly innocuous next to facial piercing so I kept my mouth shut.</p>
<p>I cant tell you how interesting this all is. iM a senior and ur making me all really excited to go to college. Rice sounds like a blast…im going to go research it! thanks guys keep the stories comin!</p>
<p>Son wouldn’t even eat the pop tarts he previously favored; I think he has overdosed on them at school . . . since he ALWAYS misses breakfast and can use his meal credits to buy them. YUCK!!! Nutrition!</p>
<p>Yeah, momofthree, my son doesn’t eat breakfast anymore. He has an 8:00 class three days a week, a 9:00 class five days. So he barely makes it up in time to get to class. He said once he overslept when he had a jazz band rehearsal at 8:00 on a Saturday. A friend called at 7:55 to ask where he was. He made it out of bed and to rehearsal–several buildings away–and was NOT late! Wish I could have seen that!</p>
<p>S has no class before 11, so he skips breakfast. He also says he eats lunch only a couple of times a week. Such a waste of our $$$, especially since this nightowl then goes out to buy food for late snacks. I think in his case, the freshman 15 are all negative.</p>
<p>Quite agree. S looks so thin, except his hair is longer than most of my girlfriends (I’m sure girls would love the thick black curls). Most amazing was how well-informed S appeared. He was more social with strange adults than I have ever seen him to be, and could talk in detail about current events. Yet the glasses still not fixed, and still wearing a t-shirt when others have on jackets. But what a lovely maturity! Made me realize why I always found him such good company…</p>
<p>Marite
My S didn’t join the meal plan 2nd year, even tho his school only serves lunch and dinner. Does your S’s suite have a kitchen?</p>
<p>Bookworm: The suite has a microwave oven/fridge combo which the kids bought. There is also a kitchen in the dorm somewhere. I suppose my S could try harder to eat lunch (the cafeteria is still open when his class lets up). he took back lots of packages of ramen noodles but claims there’s no water for heating them up (what?!) Oh well, I always knew he was not the well-rounded type. :(</p>
<p><i>Vyse: Do you have something to add to this conversation…as a parent?</i></p>
<p>Thankfully not, being a parent would be a huge setback for me right now. I just found something I disagreed with,and expressed my disagreement. Carry on.</p>
<p>SBMom, I’ve thought of writing a parenting book titled YOU PIERCED YOUR <em>WHAT</em>?</p>
<p>Dyed hair >> piercings >> tattoos in my epistemology.</p>
<p>My S is a HS senior----I LOVE to read all your stories–i can’t imagine what next year will be like! continued good luck to you and your wonderful kids!!</p>
<p>Just found out that son and 2 other students got hung up at the airport in Chicago for hours yesterday early a.m. and finally raced to their first lecture class with their suitcases! i would have liked to have seen that! In fact, i liked the raced part since if it had happened to me back in the day, I probably would have gone to the dorm and crashed especially if i had been flying all night. As far as longer hair and beard, I guess i just have to wait a couple of weeks to see…but then that phase hit my boy last year, not intentionally…just didn’t have much time to shave…a kind of clean cut kind of kid looked like a perpetual 5 o’clock shadow and worse last year–maybe that is why the beards finally develop. Just easier for some who have heavy growth!</p>
<p>My S spent his first Thankgiving away from us. (he is a Sophomore at Pitt). Is coming home for a week at Christmas to ski. Is looking for a co-op job/intership in Pittsburgh next summer. He called on my cell phone late afternoon and talked to each extended familiy member in turn. Was kind of different. I had talked to him briefly Weds. night so just passed the phone around. Called me again from a concert Friday night (unusual to hear from him so frequently) so that I could hear the band. I am seeing the same group this weekend. Unfortunately, I had to call him again Sunday to tell him that his brother has totaled the car they had shared. No one was hurt, I was looking for where he kept his secret gas stash before we junked it. Seems more mature, definately more independent. Haven’t seen him since August, seems strange but somehow normal. Too busy this week trying to fiqure out what kind of used car to buy.</p>
<p>Massmom, sorry about the car, at least it was the only injury. I haven’t seen mine either since early August. Like you, I talked on the phone several times…once from a movie theater before the show, since he doesn’t have any friends in CA to hang out with, just old folks. In fact, he was sooo good to spend one night in the guest room at an assisted living facility with his grandparents. All the eyes of Texas must have been upon him when he accompanied his gps to breakfast the next morning. He’s a keeper but he must be sooo happy to be back with his buddies! Even if it is finals week in just a few days.</p>
<p>Hmmm beards and long hair. I was wondering if it is a style. Son at UT Austin has not shaved, nor cut his hair nor combed except with some patting down with is fingers, since his nice little graduation picture. When we went to the parents’ weekend we all got a laugh as he stood in front of his graduation picture that they had up on a bulletin board in the honor’s lounge.</p>
<p>Another change. He went tow nights to see his GF who is the first born and only daughter of a couple of professors with IVY PhD’s. He came home after noon both days. I guess my wife and I expected the GF’s parents to be the heavies. Are we getting conservative in our old age?</p>
<p>BTW some of you are making Rice, which is walking distance from the house, look more attractive.</p>
<p>texdad- our D’s first night home she went out with the boyfriend. We didn’t hear her come home and woke at 3 am and thought she hadn’t come home. I tossed and turned the rest of the night.
In the morning she was in her bed. And said she had come in at 11 pm and we were sound asleep.
We thought we were in for a whole new world but we glad to see that she wasn’t there yet. Though I shouldn’t speak to soon since she still has 5 more weeks of break.</p>
<p>Our S didn’t come home with long hair…quite the opposite. He’s in the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M, and he came home with white walls! I’ll bet some of you don’t even know what white walls are…it’s when your hair is shaved so close to your head that it looks white if you are a white boy! And as short as it was, he made me shave it even more before he went back to campus on Friday for the game with Univ. of Texas.</p>
<p>Here is the stunt he pulled on us. He was going to a concert with some friends and said he’d be home by 1 a.m. I woke up at 2, checked his bed, and he wasn’t there. I called him on his cell, and when he answered I could tell he had been asleep. I said, “Where are you?!” He kept saying, “uh…uh…” then finally he said, “…in the driveway.” I went outside and sure enough there he was. He had not been drinking or doing anything else wrong, but he got sleepy driving home and so he had turned off the car and just laid his head back and went to sleep.</p>
<p>Yes, he got a concerned lecture about driving while sleepy and some recommendations for what to do if he found himself in that situation again.</p>
<p>Scared me to death!</p>