At least I’m not alone. At least you have a few days of reprieve. Hope they’re having a blast in France!
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D24 texted me about midday today to tell me that she’d used up her international data allotment and could I purchase more for her.
I told her no.
This is why DH & I warned her before the trip to use it sparingly and to use free wifi that’s available in so many places.
So this is a lesson that she’ll just have to learn the hard way. I texted the french teacher, so she’s aware. And all of the students are paired up with a buddy. AND they’re never alone at all. So D24 will be fine.
If all else fails, if she needs walking directions to get somewhere, she can do it old school style and…ASK SOMEBODY IN PERSON!
I can hear the likely whining in the background all the way from where she is in France…“But I’m bored!” “But I want to listen to Spotify!” Guess what, kiddo? That is not my problem. That is not an emergency.
Meanwhile, tomorrow they’re going to Cannes. I’m pretty sure that D24 cannes figure out how to survive w/o international cell data for a couple more days. 
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D20 decided freshman and sophomore years were the ‘new’ soiling the nest time periods. 
It made most of senior year lovely with her…or my idea of ‘lovely’ had been permanently adjusted because of those first two years of high school. 
D23 (following her sister’s footsteps) decided sophomore year was the year to try me. Thankfully I had already lived through D20 so was more, “OK, so you want to play. Let’s play”. Again, junior/senior year (in comparison) have been quite nice.
S24 watched all that unfold and (at the time) said, “I cannot believe the shenanigans!”. Well, he’s been my late bloomer because he’s following his sister’s footsteps…just a bit behind the curve, time wise. Fingers crossed that this means another lovely senior year?
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I hear you. S24 had been in a mood for the past few months. He had junior prom a couple weeks ago, has SAT June 3, senior prom June 6 (we was invited by a senior who he is friends with), still trying to figure out a job for the summer but making a half a$$ effort 
rarely home and when he is he is grumpy…driving me nuts. But also he can still be his previously sweet and funny self so when he is like that I get sad when I think about him leaving School is not out until 6/23 so we are barely crawling across the finish line.
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My S24 is acting very nice compared to my very. grumpy. 8th grader.
And he’s not leaving the nest for a while yet!
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Omg, absolutely. My 8th grader is currently the absolute worst. But that has been the way with all my boys—7th & 8th grade they were impossible, and made me long for the days when societies shipped 13 year olds off to apprenticeships or the army. 
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I can completely relate too! D24 has been soiling the nest since 7th grade hit. Thankfully D22 never felt the need to so at least I have her as a counterbalance.
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Spoke on phone yesterday w/D24 at her request. Said all the food in France so far has been “amazing,” host family retired lady she’s been staying with is “an amazing cook.” She likes eating at French cafes. They went to a soap making factory today that’s been in business for 123 yr and is bringing home some soap. They’re in Avignon tonight and part of tomorrow.
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Their trip really sounds like a lot of fun.
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Ok, now I feel a bit better. Thank you all. I also decided to step away and not over parent, which will probably help a bit.
He’s applied for 3 jobs so hoping one will pan out for summer into fall. For all the employers complaining about not having help, it’s hard to find some that will give older high schoolers a chance. I get it, but it’s still hard.
We’re down on the beach for the weekend with family. We were able to have some college discussions. He’s decided on six schools he would like apply to. I would like him to figure out a few more, but we’ll see.
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We get out the same time. The next few weeks are going to be HARD!
Picking up D24 tonight from the airport. Flight lands about 10:30 pm. Looking forward to seeing her! They took a great group photo in front of the Eiffel Tower yesterday.
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Just look closely to make sure it’s the “Paris” one and not the “Las Vegas” one. Sometimes when you give a teen money to go do something…
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The entire trip went off almost without a hitch.
D24 lost her passport on the plane. And the gifts she bought for D26 and DH. And left her Apple earbuds in the hotel room in Paris.
Thank God the French teacher insisted that everyone provide her with a color photocopy of their passports because that is what allowed US Immigration to let her through Customs at the Atlanta airport this evening.
French teacher said that ID not required further. She said that D24 cried a little but that she thought D24 is a lot tougher than she thought. 
D24 has been texting me a lot, saying she’s sorry, saying how stupid she is, how she’s irresponsible, really beating herself up over it all.
We’re going to talk to her about the whole thing tomorrow. She can use her McDonalds earnings to buy herself replacement earbuds and can use the income to also pay for the replacement passport.
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Good learning opportunity with the passport.
I had my kid take photos of their passports, credit careds, drivers license, AAA cards, library cards, incurance info, etc and make a folder with them.
This summer I plan on making a family drive that has all of that info by family member, along with everything else they may ever need such as insurance carriers, our power of attorney papers, bank accounts, household info, etc.
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D24 is now officially home. She was very chatty on the drive home. Some observations/comments from her:
- She really liked Nice. Said after a couple of days, it was easy to find her way around and she felt confident that she wouldn’t get lost there.
- said host family lady was really nice, “like a French grandma,” was an amazing cook. 1st night for dinner, she had ratatouille.
- the French language school also had a group of students from Italy. 2 Italian girls also stayed at same host family as D24. 1 of the Italian girls asked D24 if she likes pineapple on her pizza and was relieved when D24 said no. LOL.
- said that the language class was easy and “boring” because they covered stuff that she learned in 7th grade.
- she had lunch at French cafes every day and really liked that. Said lunch was usually about 15 Euros and included tax and gratuity. She & her classmates would order in French and the server would hear them speaking English amongst themselves beforehand, so the server would respond in English. D24 was frustrated by this.
- 1 boy in the group got pickpocketed on a metro/tram (don’t know which city). “Mama, this guy touched his butt and everything.”
- some lady tried to pickpocket D24 while on a metro/tram, but the travel backpack w/the locking zippers worked and nothing got stolen. After that, she kept her backpack in front of her while on public transportation.
- the Wandering Boy “was really rude the entire time. Like, we’d be on a tour and he’d be watching a video on his phone with no headphones and he’d have the volume way up and he’d ignore the tour guide AND our teacher who kept telling him to turn it off and he’d watch videos in restaurants and Mama, you JUST DO NOT DO THAT in France and he, like, did NOT care, he just kept doing it and ALL THE TIME he kept just walking off and we ALL basically ended up taking turns babysitting him the entire time.”
- the tour group consisted of kids from our school and kids from another charter school in our charter school system. D24 said, “2 of the girls from ‘Other School’ were 9th graders and oh my gosh, they were so catty and annoying and giggling the entire time and they even made fun of So-and-So who was in Robotics with me this school year, but they were being so passive aggressive about it, claiming that they were joking but it was obvious, Mama, that they weren’t joking. I mean, that’s just mean. You shouldn’t do that. He didn’t ask for that. He’s a good guy. Sometimes, I just wanted her to shut up. I purposely avoided going to lunch with them because they were so rude and oh by the way, my friend _other_boy’s_name is bisexual and he had to be _Wandering_Boy’s_name’s roommate and oh my gosh, I felt so bad for him, because he ended up having to babysit him a lot, so I went with _Other_Boy’s_Name and Wandering_Boy’s_Name to lunch a couple of times.” (When D24 says stuff like “so and so is gay” or “so and so is bisexual,” she says it in the tone of somebody who’s talking about something totally mundane like “Oh, it was a really nice day today, hung out with my friends, So-and-So is bisexual, the host family grandma makes really great crepes,” etc.
- “We went into this really big store that was basically like Costco.”
- “The pharmacies there aren’t like Walgreens or CVS that sell literally everything, they just sell medicine stuff.”
- “I don’t like Paris very much. It’s dirty and kind of gross. I wouldn’t mind going to France again, but not to Paris.”
- “Mama, on one of the planes back home, this guy was sitting next to me and he fell asleep and he started man-spreading and it was really annoying and then while he was sleeping, he put his head on my shoulder and I was like, ‘Ew, can you please get off me?’ and then on the other plane, there was this couple sitting in front of me and they spent the entire time kissing each other and I was like, ‘Ew, can you NOT do that? Can you please do that in private? We don’t all need to see that. GROSS!’”
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trip sounds great and some interesting observations. FWIW, I felt the same way about Paris, LOL.
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1st day post-France trip:
D24’s biggest thing she learned on the trip - people can be really friendly if you try to learn some of their customs, learn what’s polite and what’s not, and try to speak a little in their language. In other words, you can learn a lot if you’re willing to recognize that there’s more than just your way of looking at things.
Am going to make her write a page about her trip later this week (essay prep, free-writing)
She also went to McDonalds orientation this afternoon. Basically was doing employment paperwork. She has to turn some stuff in at Mcd’s tomorrow.
She’s definitely sounding more mature than before the trip.
Complained today about how she doesn’t want to work at McDonalds. Tough. I don’t care if you don’t like it. Find a different job, then.
On a totally different note, I saw on Southwestern University’s social media that 100% of their seniors who applied to medical school got accepted. That’s pretty impressive.
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The “100%” caught my attention, because even the top undergrad programs in the US have around an 80% admit rate, and the national average is about half of that.
I found “Southwestern University boasts a 70% acceptance rate for first-time applicants to medical, dental, and veterinary schools”, which is still quite good.
Sorry…should have said that their social media post said that 100% of this year’s seniors who applied to med school got in.