…home again, jiggity–700-mile–jig.
Please extend a warm welcome-back to Adam, who turned 14 on the 15th:
and Neil, who acquired a hand-me-down laptop this summer:
I don’t even have an iPhone, but anyway, my boys are back, and I am complete again. I remember a few summers ago when I was lamenting to an acquaintance of mine (who did not have children) about how much I missed them. He said, “If you miss them so much now, how are you going to manage when they go to college?!” I bristled and tried to be diplomatic when I pointed out that they’re supposed to go to college when they finish high school, not preschool, as Adam had the first summer he spent away from me. Leaving home is “supposed” to happen when they’re eighteen or nineteen, not when they’re five. It’s not supposed to be like this, I would moan every summer. They’re so little! They’re supposed to be with me now. But that’s not how it happened for us. I’ve had to get used to not seeing my children for several weeks at a time, since they were very young. Sometimes it’s been outright surreal, year after year. I would liken it to how it might be if I were in the military, but I have no experience in that area, so that’s merely speculation. I do know that these last nine summers have been yet another lesson for me in letting go, in trusting, and in being open to something outside the typical parenting experience.
In any case, we are now in the midst of the end-of-summer shuffle: the filling out of registration papers and standing in line to turn them in and pay fees, the scheduling of IEP meetings, the inventorying of past school supplies and the shopping for what’s needed, the getting back in touch with friends, therapists, and teachers. But it’s good to have them home. It’s good to know that they’ll be comfortable when they start school in less than two weeks. It’s good to have things settled. It’s all good.
And for the record, I’m still going to miss them when they go away to college. But oh, when and if that day comes, I will be one proud mom.
Of course, I already am.