Holy Jesus! You were writing about my son! Other than running track, you described the Rykid nearly perfectly. Uncanny!
Oh, yeah…I have two years left before mine takes wing.
I’ve gotta take more pictures.
Mine’s about to turn two. Which is strange, because I’m sure she was born just a few weeks ago.
Funny how she talks and walks now. Why, just yesterday, she couldn’t even roll over.
Geez, I wish it could last for a thousand years. A million.
That’s what I expected your post to be… but til I finished it, I, too, was worried that something had happened to Ivyson.
Congrats on your great job so far. And good luck dealing with the hole in your life.
My daughter will be a senior in HS this year–I teared up reading this. She will go far away (and I want her to-because she wants to), but I will miss her. I already miss the tea parties, the hugs, the little notes I got on my pillow–the privilege of watching her grow and change and become herself.
I don’t think I’m ready for any of this.
Ivylass,
Ain’t parenthood great? You do it right and you do yourself right out of the job. I’m in sort of the same position, but this is my baby who’s leaving. I’ll never have kids really living in the house again.
I think Ivyboy is a good kid, and he’ll do you proud.
Oh, and any time you want to introduce him to a girl his own age I know one you might consider.
(May I ask when his birthday is? Hers is next Saturday.)
ETA: When my son (firstborn) went to college his girlfriend’s mother sent a small package for each of us; him, his sisters, his girlfriend, and me. We were to open them after we left him. It’s really hard to cry when you’re looking at a rubber chicken lollipop. 
The second part is just eerily reminiscent of a particular story quote, so that’s what pinged the “omg no!” feeling for me. It was one of the line of Sandman comics, written by Neil Gaiman, and IIRC (and this whole recollection is probably heavily misremembered and paraphrased) it was a look at what the personification of Death does. She’s a kind lass, sort of a perky goth, and in this particular scene she picks up the spirit of an infant who’s just died in the crib. The infant asks if that’s all he/she gets. Meanwhile the death has been discovered, and you hear the broken-hearted wailing of the mother. It all sounds kind of morbid from this description, but really, it was kind of a comforting story overall. [/hijack]
I knew exactly where you were going with this. My 18-year-old daughter just moved into her own apartment a couple of weeks ago. It’s just down the road, but it seems light years away.
I used to hate the messes she’d leave in the kitchen, but now I don’t know what she’s eating. What if she’s not eating enough fruits or vegetables? I no longer have to admonish her for constantly being on the phone with the boyfriend, but what if he’s broken her heart? Who’ll be there to comfort her? We didn’t see all that much of her during her senior year of high school with all the time she spent at school, at work, and with friends, but now I realize just how much she was always there - stumbling out of bed in time for lunch on Saturday, waking me up coming home from a night out at midnight, grabbing her work clothes after school as she headed out again.
We have an empty room upstairs that my son can’t wait to turn into his own private TV lounge, but the whole house just seems emptier as well.
Yeah, 18 years can leave a big hole.
My parents moved out of state when I turned 18(They did give me their new address, though).
ivy, I feel for ya. I just talked to the Navy recruiter yesterday about my son (he’s 17 - Sr. year starts next week) - and I teared up knowing he was going away in a YEAR.
All we know is that we’ve done our best - and I can tell that the man that’s taking the place of my son slowly but surely is a good one, just like you can.
Mom hugs to ya.
Well, before we all get too maudlin here and start crying in our beer, 
leave us all please to remember that there IS an upside when a kid moves out:
You did your job.
You’re a success as a parent, the biggest success there is. You equipped your offspring with the will, and the mental toolkit, to leave the nest, like he’s supposed to, and no amount of successfully staged birthday parties or trips to Disney World or shopping coups at the mall can ever hope to stack up against that. Go, you.
And there is another, lesser, upside: you get a room back. Bonzo’s room is currently going rapidly back into “Mom’s Craft Stuff” configuration, where it will presumably stay. Oh, his bed and dresser and shelves with Spiderman and Legos are all still there, but I get to spread my craft stuff out all over the floor and the bed, instead of having to tote it downstairs to the dining room table if I wanna do something.
And I no longer have to contend with the piles and piles of D &D paraphernalia all over the living room. And I no longer have to contend with having to wade through hip-deep piles of junque in order to get at the windows in his room.
Those are all his landlady’s problem now.
And it’s one less person to need a car–three people divided by two cars is much easier math than four people divided by two cars…
And I no longer need to keep buying lunch meat and beef stick which offendeth mightily his vegetarian sister…
And no, I am not getting ready to go, “WAHH! I wish I had those problems back! If only I had him back,” because truly, kids are meant to move out. Think of the dysfunctionality of the boy his age next door to us, who lives with his grandparents (his mom having died unexpectedly of a brain aneurysm last year, otherwise he’d still be living with his mom); who just barely made it through high school; who works in a cafeteria; who “might take some classes at Richland”, but who we all know won’t. If that were my son, I’d be stricken with guilt, “What did I do wrong, that he won’t leave?”
Troubled Teen Boys School
Boarding for Defiant Teen Boys
Academics, and Animal Training
heh
Google Ad just now
I like the “animal training” part
Well, OK, that’s true enough. I do kind of look forward to actually having the house to myself when my son moves out. He’s a senior in high school this year, but we’ll probably make him live at home when he attends the local U. next year. The year after that, my house will be really, really quiet. And clean!
oh stop it! Stop it right now. Foolie boy is 31/2, starting Junior Kindergarten in a few weeks. Im smooshing up at anything… I was crying in the baby department at Sears yesterday because it just seems like last week I was shopping for footie sleepers… and now Im buying 6x because 5s are just maybe too snug in the shoulders to wear for long… and did I mention he’s starting school?
(And did I mention Im a single mom who works full time and has tons of guilt around this fact, and the fact that although I buy 75% of his clothes second hand I bought everything for school new, because …oh …snifff… )
Sorry, I have to go watch “Cars” for the 20th time right now. I dont care how many times Ive seen it… I have to snuggle with my baby and watch the movie…
That was very sweet, even a little bittersweet. But mostly sweet.
My eldest child turned 8 about a month ago, and I found myself reflecting on how it seems like so long since she was born, I can’t imagine my life without her. But it also seems like only a few weeks, maybe months ago that she was my little baby girl just starting to walk.
A friend of mine who is about to become a father for the first time asked me what the transition was like, and I said, The passage of time both slows up and speeds down when you have children. Each full day with them seems to take a long time, but the months and years seem to fly by.
Whatsit Jr. heads off to kindergarten on the big yellow bus in two weeks. I am worried I can’t even handle that much, so how the heck am I going to deal with leaving for – ulp – college?!
Excuse me, I think I have something in my eye…
Ditto- I was feeling sick waiting for the other shoe to drop!
Wonderful post!
My son, The Man-Cub[sup]tm[/sup], has been visiting colleges. He is a Senior this year. This was the tiny 6-month old who was put into my arms at JFK Airport on a cold December morning. Who would sit on the floor as a toddler surrounding himself with his toys in a perfect semi-circle because he was such a little organization freak.
The FemBot[sup]tm[/sup] is only a year behind him. Jeeez…
I watched a mom with her toddler a few weeks ago in the supermarket. Her girl who was perhaps 4 was YELLING and laughing. Very loudly. Totally amusing. The mom tried to shush her a few times but was just enjoying her kid’s gusto for life. I looked at that kid and the mom and thought, Oh god you better hope you remember these moments, because in a flash they’re fuzzy and distant and that girl’s a woman.
Time is a brutal taffy pull. Always thought that I took too many photos- and now I feel I’ve taken way too few.
Cartooniverse
This was just cruel. I’m leaving work right now (1 1/2 months!) to back home for the weekend for visit time. My mom emailed me today and asked me what I wanted for supper when I came home. Don’t worry, he’ll come back! We kids always do!
I don’t have kids, but I do have a brother who is eight years younger than I am, and when he was a baby and young toddler our dad was stationed overseas so I feel maybe a bit more maternal than is usual towards one’s younger sibs. And just last week, during my move across most of the country, I stopped at his place to see him and to rest for a day before finishing all the driving. He took me out to dinner, and he drove. Maybe that doesn’t sound odd, his being 23, but I was his chauffeur for years and there he was chauffeuring me around. And he’s getting out of the Air Force this November and is going to go back to school, which didn’t work out well for him the first time. He’s gonna be fine.
My little baby brother’s all grown up…
I’m glad I didn’t miss this OP. Beautiful, Ivylass. I especially liked your dad’s advice.