Excuses

So, I hope that some of you visit my blog regularly enough to notice that I haven't been posting as frequently, or as interestingly, as in the past. This is my excuses post, so you feel bad for me and give me a break. JK.
I am kind of bogged down teaching seven college classes. Add to that basketball season, which means games twice a week, plus breakfasts twice a week for the team. (I'm not sure if it's this way everywhere for high school basketball, but we feed these boys constantly. Breakfast from Panera, dinner after school from a local restaurant, Subway for the bus ride home from the game. On the weekend, we make a "spread" at someone's home and serve them that. This weekend I did waffles with blueberry sauce, cheesy potatoes, fruit, and another parent brought 8 pounds of bacon plus 4 pounds of link sausage! Do they think the parents can't feed them?)
Then Tucker is in high school swim season. We don't feed them as much, but the meets always seem to be far away and last for several hours. On Monday we drove to Marietta. I carried the swimmers' bags in my car so I followed the bus and it took two hours and twenty minutes. Next a three-hour swim meet and then a two-hour drive home.
So if teaching and sports were not all that is going on to keep me away from my blog, Grace is home for one more day. She goes back to school tomorrow.
Sometimes it's hard for me to process the fact that she'll actually be gone.
In spite of deciding that this far away school is the right choice for her, she's feeling very anxious about returning. I have tried to be supportive, saying things like, "Remember how nervous you were before you went the first time" or "This is nothing compared to staying in France for three months alone."
As her anxiety continues to rise, I decided tough love might be better. "Everyone would prefer to lie on the couch and watch America's Next Top Model rather than going to school or working..." or "It's what kids your age do. They go to school. It's not a big deal." Truthfully, if Grace doesn't go away to school, then I have failed at the process of raising her and setting her free. What Mama bird wants to set her baby bird free and the bird decide to stay in the nest?
I know Grace is just nervous because she hates change and because last year at this time she became depressed at school. She can't handle the idea of feeling like that again. I don't want her to feel that either. But she chose to return to this school and so we need to march onward so she can stop anticipating the bad.
So those are my excuses for why I haven't been blogging as much or commenting on other people's blogs.
Forgive me, but I see no respite in sight for another month or so.

Adapting

My friend Stephanie teared up on Saturday when she talked about her daughter going back to college. She couldn't think about it, much less bear to watch her leave the house and return to the college two hours away.
It's times like this, that I realize I may be lacking in some basic emotions. It's not like I love my kids any less, I'm just not overly emotional about them heading off to college or France or wherever their lives take them.
I've hypothesized before that I'm less emotional about it because I homeschooled them and I feel like I've spent plenty of hours getting them prepared for life beyond home. But I think something else has helped prepare me too.

Three years ago in March, my husband found out that the newspaper was laying off employees. We found out the next day that Earl wasn't laid off, but he was moved to the evening shift. This left him home during the day. Since I am an adjunct college teacher, I'm sometimes home during the day too. We had to learn how to adapt to new schedules and learned how to enjoy time together while the kids were gone to school.
Sometimes we walk downtown to get coffee, other times we venture out for lunch or ride our bicycles. Sometimes, we just watch sitcom reruns. We've remembered what we enjoyed about each other before the kids came along.
I think this alone time together has helped prepare me for the empty nest that is coming. This year Spencer will graduate and head off to college. Two years later, Tucker will follow suit. Then, unless Grace comes home after college, Earl and I will be home alone throughout the school year.
The idea is certainly different. No basketball games or swim meets or musicals or orthodontist appointments. No big shoes strewn across the kitchen floor. No pile of wet towels waiting to be washed. And no one to stretch up to on tiptoes so I can kiss their stubbly cheeks goodbye as they head out the door for school.
I imagine that if Earl is still working evenings, cooking dinner will go by the wayside. I'll probably settle for a bowl of cereal or a salad.
Even as I strain to hear the back door slam with the approach of oncoming teenage boy feet home from school, I don't feel teary at the idea they'll have moved on.
I'm not a martyr taking a stiff upper lip as they move on, and I'm not so selfish that I can't wait until they go. It just feels right that the kids take up new challenges. They live in a college dorm full of other tall boys and girls who dance and watch Disney films. They are busy carving out their own niches now.
And luckily, I'll still have days filled with my husband and dreams of traveling to exotic places.

Reading the Signs

When the matriculation began yesterday at Grace's new college, bagpipers marched up the aisle in kilts. That is how I know this university is a perfect match for her, in spite of her angst.
Grace loves bagpipes and all things Scottish. So when the pipers began to play and walked up the aisle followed by the drummers and all of those faculty members in robes and funny hats, I knew she was in the right spot.
Matriculation is a ceremony that welcomes the new students and starts them on their schooling career, much like graduation comes at the end.
I had spent the day helping Grace unpack and set up her room. We made lists of things she needed from the grocery and things we needed to send from home. We avoided tears although there was lots of hand clutching. Then Grace went to join her "house" for a meeting and they walked over to matriculation together.
As I sat through the speeches of matriculation, I felt myself blinking back tears. In the invocation, one woman advised the students to "put away your fears" and I wanted to grasp those words and thrust them in Grace's pocket. The president advised students to "look to the stars" to realize how small they are and their problems are in comparison to the world.
Blink, blink.
I just wanted this to work for her. I wanted it to be easy for her as well.
In the end, each of the new students walked out under the banner of their houses. They stood in circles in the fieldhouse and we were allowed to say a brief goodbye before we left them.
I hurried through the groups of students looking for Grace's house. I didn't want her to think we weren't coming for a goodbye. I felt a sob gurgle up and swallowed it down. And I saw her then, her plaid rainboots covering her feet. Her high school sweatshirt proclaiming her name and sport.

We hugged and cried and wiped mascara. And then we left for our 10-hour drive home. There was no going back.
And that lasted until about 11 when the cell phone started to ring and Grace's voice was muffled by sobs. She hurt physically and she couldn't do this.
So we talked her down. Just one night, make it one night. Eventually, as we drove through the rain, the phone stopped ringing and we assumed she had fallen asleep.
The darkness of the New York thruway closed in around us as we headed home to our boys who would begin high school on Tuesday.
We had taken a back to school photo before Grace left, one to put with the other photos for posterity.

Almost Time

We're at a motel in upstate New York. That's right -- a motel. And if you ever toured the U.S. in the 1970s, you'll recognize the kind of motel It's one-story and brick. You can pull up right to the doorway and unload your car. This motel happens to have about a dozen or more motorcycles parked in front of the doors. Apparently, a lot of older people from Canada ride their motorcyles to upstate New York for the weekend.
The room inside is nice though with wood floors and wooden tables, a bed, and a rollaway bed so that Earl, Grace and I can all fit. Grace and I shared the bed while Earl took the cot.
So far, tears have fallen intermittently and sobs have shaken Grace's swimmer's shoulders several times.
Before we left yesterday, she sat on her bed clutching a stuffed panda bear, rocking back and forth as she cried.
We lured her out with the promise of a family breakfast and convinced her to bring the panda bear along. Breakfast with the boys was a little belligerent with Tucker picking apart everything I said, before the boys gave hugs to their sister who was going away for four months. Well, Spencer gave a hug. Tucker stood still and was hugged.
Spencer had asked me earlier in the week, "Will you cry when you leave Grace?"
"Of course, I will," I told him.
"I'm not going to cry," he said.
And he didn't, but he gave her a few words of encouragement.
While we were driving nine hours, I called and checked on the boys. Spencer had "a few" friends over, including Chelsea and Hannah. Um, no. That's not okay.
At least it took my mind off the impending departure.
Today is the day when we get to travel about 15 miles, find Grace's dorm room, make up her bed, put some posters on the wall, have lunch in the cafeteria, walk around the campus and sit in Adirondack chairs. I can cheerfully anticipate all of that. I just can't think about that moment -- that moment that is stamped onto the schedule -- family goodbye at 4:30 p.m.
That's when we'll climb in the car and leave her alone with people she has only met on Facebook.