They Suck Your Life Right Up

[copied from dland]

It's been a while, and here's why.

They came home from college, both of them. It was wonderful having them here, and I love them so much. Yet ...

They are so incredibly disruptive to the quiet little life we so naturally settled into about five minutes after they both left in August. For all of you out there getting edgy about sending off your youngest to college and falling into that empty nest thing, I am here to tell you that sending both -- or all, whatever -- of your kids away is the most relaxed you will have felt since you got pregnant. When they are gone:

there are no dishes in the sink.

there are clean towels in the bathroom.

there is hardly any garbage to take out.

you can watch whatever you want to on tv.

the phone almost never rings.

no one is coming and going at odd hours.

This one amuses me. Okay, we're hardly late-night-type folks, but when someone is sitting around in her pajamas at nine o'clock on a Saturday night and then leaves for a minute and comes back fully dressed, telling me she's going to a movie and someone's picking her up at 11, I've got to wonder. Their evenings BEGIN at 11:00? By 11, I've usually already slept for an hour or two and am just coming alive for my first bout of insomnia/eating-everything-in-the-kitchen for the night.

But no complaints, really. They came, they went. Aside from their bizarre random moments of sibling rivalry, they got along great, as they always do, and were most pleasant to be with. I made a point last night of telling Older Daughter (while waiting for her 11:00 pickup) that I am proud to be her mother, and that I am proud of the person she has become. Younger Daughter has grown so much while away at school, and I am proud of her too.

And I am proud of me. Thanksgiving is to our family what Christmas is to others: our ultimate coming together, the holiday that means the most to us. Nephews flew in from California, drove down from Boston. It was a wonderful Thanksgiving, all of us there. Except, of course, Shirl. Our first Thanksgiving without Grandma.

We made it.


ENTRY #21