brought son back last wknd, 1st day was a little rough. weird cuz this is his 2nd yr. this wknd we bring daughter back. cherishing our time with her right now. will be sad again once we get home. I know we were doing fine before they came home, but I kinda forget now. just me and daughter shuffling cars and snow this morning, reminded me of last winter, cuz it was our 1st winter with son away for school. now I’m looking at this coming winter without my snow buddy. gosh I love my kids sigh
Yup, dropped daughter off at the airport on Monday and it was a rough several hours after she left. Much harder than dropping her off at the dorm last August. Then it was 30 or so hours of stressing while she traveled halfway around the planet by herself, making connections, etc. We were the ones who did the flying after we left her in August. A cell phone malfunction at the point of airport shuttle to campus (at 10:30 PM EST) made it such that my husband ended up having to call the shuttle company to make sure that she caught that last leg, extra stressing for us. Now she is back there, classes start tomorrow, and we are all back to what had become our “new normal” before the winter break. Can’t go backward, only forward.
Yup, the drop off stunk (well I could use a stronger word but I won’t). I thought a nice bottle of wine with our dinner after she left would help, but once the buzz wore off the stress seemed worse. It has been three nights since she left and we had our first decent night’s sleep since the couple of days before she left.
Yup, I so get how you are feeling.
one thing that is helping is our condo parking situation. when our daughter goes back we can store the 3rd car off-site again and I don’t have to worry about condo police … ugh
It hasn’t been as bad as I thought. The first day is the saddest, but I’ve been keeping busy with making coffee and lunch dates, organizing paperwork, putting things back together in the house…catching up on TV shows. I’ve texted a few times helping him with his schedule and catching up. I’m ok now…you will be too.
same here. never gets easier
DD#1 is on a plane right now to her internship at Disney for the spring. She’s such an airhead that we’re always waiting for something to be forgotten, lost, confiscated at TSA. The big drama this weekend was dying her hair. Dyed it red. Too (way too) red. Dyed it ‘copper’. Way too dark and sort of purplish. Told her we couldn’t dye it anymore. Big sadness. She bought something called ‘Oops’ to strip the color out and it actually worked, taking her hair back to the original brown with red highlights.
I can use a little less drama right now
DD#2 has been back in class for a week already. She did not win Powerball even though someone from her town did.
For me, it never stops being hard. Even my youngest is now a few years graduated. But when all are home, or even one for a weekend, I find I am really down after they leave. My two D’s live far enough away that I am never sure the next time I will see them.
I remember when I moved across country from my parents a few years after I graduated undergrad. Whenever I was leaving after a fairly infrequent visit, I remember them with tears in their eyes. Although I was sad too, I now understand more what they were feeling.
got the deed done. long day with 8 hrs of hgwy driving. nice to spend the day together the 3 of us. got her to school and to her room. no one was a round so I was allowed up. it was nice to see it long after that epic move-in day in August. then out for shopping and lunch. a sad goodbye but she has work to do and we have a life back home. electronics makes things much easier in modern times doesn’t it? Wifey has the day off so she told me she was going to facetime video chat etc a little bit today. now it’s just us two again … da da da … here’s hoping we get along
I do not know whether we are the most paranoid parents here (at least when DS was in college.)
Because DS flied to and from campus and getting through TSA requires a picture ID issued by the government, we got 3 such IDs for him just in case he lost one (or even two):
-
Driver license issued by our state’s DMV.
-
ID issued by our state’s DMV (it does not cost much to add this one when you get the driver license. It looks almost exactly like a driver license but it is just a personal ID but it still has the picture on it.)
-
Passport.
He did not have to use either 2) or 3) though. It was handy to have 3) when, at one time, his GF wanted him to accompany her to fly to visit her relative and they decided to take this trip in the last minute.
Dragging him to the post office in the downtown area to apply for his passport made him roll his eyes though ("Why do I need that when I do not have any plan to get out of this country?’)
Of course, he had also been equipped with two credit cards (one is a joint one with us) before he traveled alone. No young person should travel OOS alone without a credit card.
D2 and DH left on Sunday for the five hour drive back to her campus. They took the dog, because D2 is still fearful after a young man tried to break her door down one night (he allegedly was on drugs, at the wrong house, thought his roommate was locking him out). We have a good security system, but the dog will provide additional alarm. Dh wanted to go with her so he could make sure her house and yard (which we own and plan to sell this summer) is in good shape. He booked a flight home for Monday afternoon.
I love D2 so much. I would (and have) gotten on a plane at a moment’s notice to be there for her in a time of need. There’s not much I wouldn’t do for her. She has a hilarious sense of humor, and I love spending time with her. I miss her when she is gone.
All that said, I practically did a dance when she, DH, and doggy left. I had 36 hours to myself in a quiet house that stayed clean for longer than an hour. D2 talks A LOT, and I tend to be more introspective, enjoy quiet moments reading, listening to soft music, etc. I do not enjoy clutter or constant television noise, both of which D2 brings to the house in spades. She has a lot of health issues, which can bring a good deal of drama. I am not fond of drama. She loves to cook for us, but also loves to leave a huge mess in the kitchen afterwards. Her room is a disaster zone. It is downstairs by the family room, so I am constantly closing her door so I don’t have to look at it. Somehow the door ends up open again in minutes and my admittedly pathological clutter-induced anxiety goes back up.
We LOVE having her home, but it’s also good for all of us when she goes back to school. She has applied to grad school in our city. We all have agreed that if she ends up going to this school, she will nevertheless rent an apartment close to campus. I think that will be the best of all worlds for all of us. 
Yup @Nrdsb4 — when D “came home” for grad school she wisely got an apartment to share with a friend. Love, love , love her but I also love love love the quiet and calm. We savor our independence as much as she savors hers.
awww, that’s my dream, that my kids graduate and move to a nearby town, or our hometown. Wifey and I grew up in other states and settled to a cute small NE town full of “multi-generational townies” meaning grandparents went to the same schools as their grandchildren, and they all still live in the same small town (5 sq miles). we’re tired of our condo and sharing decision making with the condo board & management company and want our own small house now, and we want to stay in the same town or nearby. I have to admit tho, it’s my kids that bring me this connection to the town. Wifey is better at connecting w/ ppl than I am. she really helped me get grounded when we met.
@rumrunner that does sound rather idyllic, my husband and I both grew up in small New England towns that are like that, but neither of us continued to live in those towns or even the state as adults. Our generation in both families is spread all over the country. We have lived out of the USA for almost 20 years, and now that our daughter is in school in the states, our sights are shifting to being back there too. We have a small home in New England where we spend the summers and we have often fantasized about buying our daughter land to build on someday right across the road. Kind of silly since she is very unlikely to live there–no real career opportunities for her and why we don’t live there year round ourselves, but a fun fantasy.
Well—D came here for grad school but found work in Europe. It was nice while it lasted!
I love when my kids come home, but I am not unhappy when they leave. I was just explaining to one today that if he winds up home after graduation he will need to take on a LOT more responsibility. It will no longer be vacation time with mom doing 99% of the cooking and cleaning. I would be happy if he settled close by, or even elsewhere, but I suspect he will wind up back with us for at least some period of time.