<p>It feels like cheating if you plan to embarrass your kids.</p>
<p>I, on the other hand, have little problem embarrassing mine spontaneously. Unfortunately, I usually don’t even realize it until I notice the red faces, sighs from rmlmom and exclamations of “DAD!”</p>
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<p>Hey…you and other parents can conspire to dress up in spandex and makeup and recreate the following:</p>
<p>[KISS</a> - Rock And Roll All Nite - Brooklyn Bridge - Reunion Tour / MTV Awards - YouTube](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lVbe0inZ7Q]KISS”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lVbe0inZ7Q)</p>
<p>All the tales on this thread have convinced me to retract my earlier advice about how parents shouldn’t wear T-shirts with their own alma mater’s name emblazoned in HUGE letters.</p>
<p>I’m going to strut around wearing a BMOC T-shirt all day long throughout move-in and orientation. That way I am sure not to get any guff when Lake Jr.'s roommates and their parents find me sanitizing the room.</p>
<p>I was getting a little sentimental thinking of D as rising senior and dropping her off next year wherever…then I started reading this thread. Excellent therapy. Thanks for the smiles. It will be fun creating a few fau pax of my own!</p>
<p>Oh my gosh. Getting some great ideas. In August, I’m moving my sophomore son into new condo cottage style apartment where he’ll be living with three other guys, only one of whom he knows well. He wants me to help unpack and “set things up,” since in addition to his bedroom there will be a kitchen and a living room and his bathroom and an extra bathroom. </p>
<p>I think I’ll introduce myself to everyone I meet as his interior decorator. </p>
<p>Then maybe he’ll want to move himself in next year. :D</p>
<p>Wonderful thread. I havn’t thought of Fredericks of Hollywood in years.</p>
<p>Last year, prior to moving son in, I found photos of possible room set ups on FB and I tried to show them to my disinterested son to give him an idea of what to do in the room. He barely looked at the screen as I went by one image which was called the “I hate my room mate set up”. Both student desks and hutches were set up back to back dividing the room.</p>
<p>Fast forward. We arrive to the room. We open the door and my son immediately looks at me and says, “The furniture is in the I hate my room mate configuration. Quick, lets move it before he comes. I don’t want him to think I hate him.”</p>
<p>Just when you think your kids are not paying attention to what you show them, they surprise you.</p>
<p>^ that is really cute</p>
<p>I love your story, actual proof that eye -rolling and apparent disinterest covered up that he was actually interested.</p>
<p>In high school, I belonged to a group that had a joke, “Open mouth, insert foot.” I did that at least once to my knowledge during move-in, and probably other times that didn’t register. (Oh, well, there was one sign of severe OCD–just due to fretfulness about leaving QMP for a long period.) </p>
<p>I’m done with this particular stage of things, but my advice to parents preparing for move-in, about a month from now is: </p>
<p>Please bear in mind that the other parents may have just had a long drive (perhaps with an overloaded car), and you don’t know what obligations they have on the other side of move-in. If they are like us, they are too old to be lifting things without hurting their backs–yet they are doing it anyway. It might be broiling hot. They might easily say or do something stupid. </p>
<p>If you overlook the stupid stuff, you will probably find out that during the few future chance encounters you have with them, they are mostly ok. They were probably generally ok at child-rearing. After all, their son/daughter selected the same school that yours did.</p>
<p>And, QuantMech, they are probably more than a little traumatized at leaving the kid that has slept under their roof for the last 18 years… another reason to cut some slack. Someone up thread said parents shouldn’t cry – as if we would be able to help it!</p>
<p>Checklist to embarass DD upon move-in 24 months from now:</p>
<p>1.Dad (me) in LOUD Hawaiian shirt, blow-up parrot in shoulder, carrying in bags, boxes, suitcases.
2. Box of condoms for water-ballon fight with DD upon completing move-in.
3. Weekend reservations so WW (wonderful wife) and I can spend multiple last days with the child helping her out. She’ll miss us so. LOL!</p>
<ol>
<li>1-3 above -NOT</li>
</ol>
<p>If her mother comes to move-in we’ll be there for the duration. If I go, I’ll assemble whatever is required and be gone within an hour. If DD’s flying we’re shipping everything and DD can fetch it herself upon arrival. She’s now an adult.</p>
<p>Re #371: But soft! The first wind that blows from the north brings to our ears the sound that the best-laid plans make, gang-ing agley (and the clashing of sources).</p>
<p>. . . not to be excessively cynical, but I think that a lot of people plan as in #371, but occasionally parents encounter obstacles when they actually try to execute those plans.</p>
<p>(I am sure that many posters have been successful at it. We were kinda moderately successful, sort of–if not considered too closely.)</p>
<p>A word of advice from a friend who drove to move-in day; when the campus police tell you that you’re in a ‘No Parking’ zone and ask you to move your vehicle, oblige them with a smile and move it post haste. It will save you a few dirty looks and possibly save you embarrasment of a more significant and financial nature.</p>
<p>They had the boxes of condoms in the freshman girls bathrooms.</p>
<p>I worked for res life (as an RA and a hall director) and my very FAVORITE questions were always “Will someone check on my child to make sure they are going to class/meeting new friends?” and “Will you call me if my child gets sick?”</p>
<p>My second year as an RA, one of the parents had copied down the RA number on the bulletin board during move in. She called me around October because she hadn’t heard from her daughter in a few hours and wanted me to track her down. And when I say a few hours, I mean 3-4. It was about 8 pm. No worries about mental health or anything (I have happily tracked down students who we had the smidgen of a thought that they were in danger, including literally walking around campus knocking on doors)…just…wanted me to find her and tell her to call her mom.</p>
<p>When D entered college, her brother was going into his third year at another college. He was moving into an unfurnished apt and was bringing half of IKEA with him to the new apt, so we rented a U-Haul. We dropped off both kids on the same road trip; D was dropped off first. You can only imagine the looks we got as we parked outside her dorm hauling a trailer behind us. ;)</p>
<p>I am certainly hoping my parents dont find this thread…</p>
<p>Last year when we moved in my frosh DS, we attended a parent-only meeting in the dormitory. A mother raised her hand and asked if there would be nightly room checks to make sure that there were no members of the opposite sex sleeping over in the rooms. The dorm rector told her that they did not do nightly checks of the rooms. She was quite upset and continued on, wondering how “they” could sure that her son wasn’t having sex at night in his room if they didn’t check. To which the rector replied something like - “I don’t know how things work in your house, but it doesn’t have to be night time for people to have sex.” It didn’t make her feel better, but it did stop her in her tracks - and secretly made the rest of the parents take a liking to the dorm director!</p>
<p>I’ve been reading this thread and it’s hilarious! My brother got married the day before I had to move in to my dorm, and since my parents had so many people in town for the wedding, they couldn’t really leave to help me move in, so I had to drive to my new university and move myself in all alone…and now, I’m quite glad I had to do it that way! Boy, I never realized how lucky I was to not have any parents around to totally embarrass me!!</p>