Browsing all posts in "college".
Excuse Me While I Install a Security System in my Kitchen
Last weekend, I had the pleasure (slight use of sarcasm) of helping my college-age son move from his dorm ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE STREET into a university apartment. Yep. I trekked 300 miles to move my kid’s stuff 300 yards. Am I a great mom or what???? Okay, I’m a mom who got guilted [...]
Done. Finished. Cooked.
A mother only gets to say that once per kid. I get to say it four times, but this is my first. My oldest graduates from college with a BS in Biomedical Engineering this weekend. He will immediately start his PhD program. A paid gig. No longer on mommy and daddy’s dole. That makes him [...]
The Mother’s Guide to College Accommodations
As the acceptance letters arrive in the mail, and eager first-time college parents go through the phone-book sized college handbooks, eagerly searching for (or avidly avoiding) that dollar sign at the end, The Mother, who has been through this all before, is willing to share her expertise on the issue. To wit, The Mother’s Guide [...]
Give Me Some Credit!
Actual conversation with The Grouch (18, going on 2, who was home for the holidays): Grouch: I can’t send in my credit card payment. I can’t find the envelope. Mother: You can send them in with any envelope. The address is on the statement. Grouch: You can do that? Mother: Yep. Grouch: (Holding his check [...]
The Time Machine
In literary analysis, a “destabilizing event” is that thing that happens after the characters have been proffered and the setting detailed. It’s what sets the characters off and rolling in the direction of the author’s choosing. In a journey-type story, there may be more than one, but there is always at least one. I had [...]
I’ll Be Home for Christmas (When I Wander In…)
My eldest drives home from college for the winter (Christmas? Hanukkah? Solstice? Mithra’s Birthday?) break. It’s a fifteen hour drive, as long as he avoids rush hours in any of the big cities he must drive through, and as long as they haven’t prepared in advance for all that holiday traffic by taking the ship [...]
The Engineer Syndrome
The nice elderly gentleman bagging my groceries this evening spent a great deal of time stacking them just so. Then he rearranged them. Then stacked. Then rearranged. I must have been staring. Or maybe I had that impatient expression of someone who realizes that it’s 4:30 and she’s not getting any younger. He explained that [...]
The Ten Commandments of Sending a Kid to College
[This post originally appeared on Timeless Bliss, back when I was welcome there. I think maybe two people read it. It's mine, so I'm reposting it here for your edification.] When I sent my oldest off to college, I dropped him at the door and said, “Good luck.” His roommate’s parents hovered for a week. [...]
The Curious Case of the Phone Call in the Afternoon
I have a theory about college age kids. Ready? THEY’RE NOT KIDS ANYMORE. Eighteen-year-olds are adults. They are, at the age of eighteen, responsible for themselves in the eyes of the law, and in the eyes of the MOTHER. Mom and Dad pay for college, as long as we can afford it, and as long [...]
My “I’m Doing it Right” Moment
I often quip that moms never know if they’re doing it right until the kid is thirty, has two of his own, and is sitting on his psychiatrist’s couch. But I may have been wrong. I never said I was perfect. In fact, I think one of my main strong points is in not attempting [...]
