<p>We’re missing out on HS graduation as we did it last year. Enjoy it. We treated ours very informally. No new dresses purchased.</p>
<p>Instead, this weekend, we went to the wedding of a boy whose mother we first met when she was pregnant with him. The father is the president of a local university, who had heard that my son was not going to attend his school, and he pointed out that one great advantage from my son’s perspective was that Amherst was an hour or so farther away than his school. My wife decided she wanted to have kids after spending a weekend with this family with the boy sitting on her lap plus coping with emergencies when he was 2. So, pretty touching to see him get married.</p>
<p>I’m hoping to enlist aid in the project of closet archeological excavation. But, we first need to excavate the floor area surrounding the closet and floor and hope that there aren’t any hidden creatures under the plateaus and mesas of abandoned clothing. But, the truly ancient finds will be in the closet. He has a friend who is studying geology, but she is going away for the summer, so we’ll need to bring in someone with similar skills. Maybe a paleontologist to see if we can find any fossil records. Or maybe someone who can sell it all on craigslist.</p>
<p>spray tan accomplished, will see how it comes out, supposedly it takes a few hours for it to darken. My D has some friends who are girls, but likes guys because less drama. The excavation here will be a covert operation while D is at college, she will never notice. We will do it under the guise of replacing the carpet. I have been anxious this week, for a number of reasons, but this HS thing is part of it. Seems like everyone has done ok, so I think I will too. Will bring Kleenex to graduation this weekend. MY mother and mothe r in law will come for that I have reservations at a nice restaurant., party is not for a couple of weeks, I do like how the house is improving. Since I do not have to dress up for work, Ireally don’t have anything to wear so sometime soon I will have to try to get something . Congrats to all on your graduations!</p>
<p>For a girl who is deathly afraid of spiders (and many other insects) you’d think she’d keep the floor and other surfaces clean enough to see if there were any around… Now that you all mention it, she does have several friends that are interested in paleontology that may be interested in a ‘dig’ this summer, who knows what they’ll find under the clothes, books, papers, etc., etc…</p>
<p>and if all else fails I keep threatening to ‘freeze dry’ her beanie babies in those space saver bags, maybe I can do the whole room that way!</p>
<p>Oh, beanie babies… We have quite the collection of those. They did make it out of her room and into the attic a few years ago. Now the decision of what to do with all of these old toys. </p>
<p>D seems to think they deserve prime space. Her American Girl doll is occupying a closet in the basement but will be relegated to the attic before long. Her PlayMobile house has also been in a prime location, but the visiting neighborhood kids did play with them until recently. I’m willing to hold on to some toys that hold special memories, but I’m attempting to reclaim potentially useful space for more immediate needs.</p>
<p>Good lord, what parallel lives we have from American girl dolls, to beanie babies in the attic, relatives who won’t RSVP and fingers that are still trembling from all the overuse in the garden this weekend. It’s not even planted yet - just pulling the damn weeds!!</p>
<p>^^ Legos anyone? Boxes and boxes of Legos. He’s pared down many, many times and has almost no childhood toys left, but there are still boxes of Legos. If I send him to clear them out, he’ll emerge hours later with a sheepish smile and a new creation. :D</p>
<p>geek<em>mom - geek</em>son is just like #theoryson.</p>
<p>I have not been allowed to purge these and you know I don’t think I will. All his videos, yes, computer games, yes. But the lego will go into storage for his someday kid I think. Plus his little cousin LOVES Lego and when the cousins come, he has a royal treat playing with it. My S has made special offering of prized pieces to his cousin just to make him happy - and this is good thing</p>
<p>I DO have major plans to take over his bedroom as the guest room though, and to turn the guest room into a sitting room where H can practice his guitar (since he keeps them all in there anyway)</p>
<p>S does not know this of course, but he’ll still get his room when he comes back. It will just be the guest room :-)</p>
<p>We won’t change D’s room except to clean it./purge. She feels sad (a little) about the change too, so I think to convert her room would make her sad. reminds me ofthat commercial, don’t they change the room to an exersize room before college son is out of the driveway?LOL sometimes we tease her about that. Gotta use humor…</p>
<p>S1 has never had to give away any of his favorite childhood stuff - he’s “loaned” it all to S2, who has, as a result, almost all the Legos he could ever want. (Almost.) </p>
<p>We let D keep her room pretty much intact (though largely purged and cleaned), but I think change is in the air. H and I are starting to realize just how ridiculous it will be to have TWO emptyish, clean bedrooms when S1 leaves in August. </p>
<p>Or to be honest, H is starting to get through to me on that front. I’m from the change-is-bad school; he’s from the let’s-try-something-new school. So maybe we’ll do something about it . . . eventually?</p>
<p>At some point, we’re going to buy a new house. I’ve always wanted a house on water and there are three rivers in our town. Plus, over time, we’ll probably want a one-level house. We’ve got a few years as D is still in HS (though she’s taking her last final of her sophomore year tomorrow). At some point thereafter, the kids will experience change. S probably would have more difficulty than D, who wants more closet space anyway.</p>
<p>We’re in exactly the same…ah…boat Shaw. We also want our “last” house to be on the water, and have rivers and lakes in town. I’d like to do it while the kids are still coming home (we have a HS freshman too) and can enjoy the whole boat scene. The right property hasn’t become available though. And we’d have the clean our basement…</p>
<p>We had to move during S’s freshman year at college. He says he didn’t mind that we took the opportunity to make the third big bedroom into a game room, and put his stuff in the smallest room in the new house. His bed, dresser and book shelf just fit. Sometimes we feel a little bit guilty, but not much. I think he’s happy that we didn’t just leave all of his stuff packed up in the moving boxes.</p>
<p>Dear D has the legos, and the Beanies, and BOOKS. Graduation was last week and we really have not even started looking into what she will leave, pack, or take with her. I guess we are both holding on to these next two months. We both know change is upon us but are not ready to move, at least I’m not. lol</p>
<p>We’ve still got the Beanies all over the house. I hate to banish them to the attic yet because one or twice a year, some child will need a stuffed snail, or frog or pig to take to school for something and we get out the appropriate Beanie Baby.</p>
<p>The American Girl dolls are problematic. I’m ashamed to say how many we have, but I don’t think they can ever go to the attic. Here in Texas, our attics get very hot. It’s amazing what has melted up in our attic. Has anyone stored their AG dolls in extremely hot conditions?</p>
<p>Books. A neglected fish tank. Old trophies. And Son still has Legos in his room. It would be easy to stick them in boxes out in the garage, except for one thing: the Lego STAR DESTROYER which is huge. What will we do with it? Younger brother already has a Death Star occupying the prime real estate in his room. Our boys also have boxes of figures, books, and documents from D&D and World of Warcraft games in their rooms. While my husband had no trouble getting rid of D’s Beanies last year (we had regular and teeny beanies galore–did anybody else have to go through McD drive-through at that stage?), I suspect he’ll be reluctant to purge son’s “stuff”.</p>
<p>We will have to do a major clothes purge in D2’s room. You have to wade through the clothes on the floor to move around. :eek: She loves fashion even though she is a “jock”. Should be very interesting to see how she handles packng up for school! Beanie Babies and American Girl dolls and accessories were packed up a long time ago to make room for more clothes!</p>
<p>We purchased our home 12 years ago, we decided then to buy our retirement home “on the water”, even though we had many years before retirement. At the time the homes were less expensive than the city, or inland. About 5 years ago that changed and our home was worth 4x more. The economy took a hit, but we have at least 2x or 3x the amount of home equity available. Thankfully we never tapped into it, we just upgraded when we had the money or we did without. </p>
<p>The only thing D will leave behind are winter clothes. In fact Lil’ D found shoes that fit but were big D’s. Lil’ D is hoping that she leaves them behind as she wants to wear them. I expect a thorough rummaging of older D’s room by Lil D the minute she walks out for college. Since both girls have 2 bedrooms and a bath upstairs and we are downstairs, lil D wants to convert the 2nd floor all to her own.</p>
<p>How is everyone doing on the “lose 5 pounds by graudation” challenge? I had lost 3, then we had the after prom party and I ate the yummy leftovers for a few days.</p>