We put her on a plane this morning for a pre-orientation special interest program. My wife goes out for the official orientation move-in later this week, but I won’t see her until the parent visiting weekend 2 months from now. She won’t be home for 4 months.
Keep flashing back to images of her as a baby. I know it’s typical for parents to get a little wistful when their kids grow up and move on to the next stage of life, but damn.
“Little” brother (who is 15 and taller than me) will be around for another 3 years. When he goes to college I’m going to be a total wreck. I see it coming.
Keep strong. My kids are only 5 and 2 months, and I’m already seeing how quickly that moment is coming up. My daughter starts Kindergarten this week, and I’m already thinking, “wasn’t she just a baby? And now it’s only 13 years till she starts college? Heck, 13 years ago was a blink of an eye…” I know I’ll be a wreck too.
If it makes you feel any better, I remember when my parents dropped my older sister off at college, and they were both a wreck. When they dropped me off at college four years later, they were sad for a day, then started partying since they finally had the house to themselves a bit…so you may actually not be too sad when little brother is away.
I’ll tell ya, Modern Technology makes this whole thing easier. She gave us a virtual tour of her dorm room this morning with FaceTime. No hugs, but at least we can see her.
RickG- my son and I have always been very close - the morning I took him for his last breakfast with me and to the recruiter for his start into Navy Basic Training was hard. Really hard. I cried, and cried. The day “the box” arrived on the front stoop (it’s the box they ship everything he had with him home) and I knew I wouldn’t talk to him for WEEKS I was a wreck.
I totally understand.
It makes the times I DO get to see him and talk to him so much more precious.
Anecdote - back when he was in high school, between him and my husband, I had the shortest hair in the house. I still do, but at least the drains don’t clog as fast. So enjoy it when you get to be the tallest!
I’m pretty sure Face Time is the only thing that kept my wife sane when our daughter left.
To make it worse, she graduated a semester early so she could start last January and my wife was convinced she had been cheated out of several months. Also, she is an athlete so has to report early to start training. We went down about a week later to move her into the dorm (she had been sleeping on a couch in a team mate’s house for the previous week), and you would swear that it was a scene from a cheesy movie with my wife running in slow motion through a wheat field with open arms… except it was a parking lot, and my daughter was standing still looking at the crazy lady rushing at her.
Nah. The b-school there has a program for student-owned businesses (they get sold to current students when the owners graduate), and one of them is a laundry service. They pick up from your dorm, take it to a local dry-clean-wash-and-fold place, and bring everything back all shiny. Cheaper than shipping. (Or, if she doesn’t want to spend all her work-study money, she can use the in-dorm laundromat.)
Why, when I was in college, we had to haul our laundry down to the river and beat it with rocks to get it clean.
Did this last year. UGA is an hour away from Atlanta, but Mom didn’t come because she knew she would just cause a scene and cry all the time.
Somewhere he read that freshmen shouldn’t come home for the first month so they will get more acclimated and focus on studies and important things instead of being distracted. He took it to heart, and did it. It was awful! He was happy, mind you, but we were miserable.
It will pass. Just keep thinking about the fun he’s having, the friends he’s making, and remember when you were young.
Turns out, I was much worse than my wife. I cried all month! She didn’t come this year either, and I was much better.
Plus we see him all the time. I work First Aid and Communications for all UGA home games, and he comes home now and then. With laundry.
I don’t know if I could cope with the Standard College Model [sup]TM[/sup] where they go to another state and only come home for holidays.
I was a shy and risk-averse kid. I didn’t have any fun.
She is way more outgoing than either me or my wife. Makes her a good journalist. Her pre-orientation special interest program is with the student newspaper. After one day, she’s already got an appointment to interview the Academic Provost for a story. I’m proud and happy for her, but also a little jealous.
We live in a college town, and she never even considered going to CU. She’s been wanting to go away for college since about 7th grade. It’s a 2 hour flight or 13 hour drive so we’re stuck waiting until Winter Break (Thanksgiving is too short).
makes this whole thing easier. She gave us a virtual tour of her dorm room this morning with FaceTime. No hugs, but at least we can see her.
