<p>True this transition does bring new discovery and new joy…</p>
<p>10 days left to complete the shopping/packing/ordering…</p>
<p>Asked if kiddo has discussed more with the roommate and suggested they consider and order/hold the furniture etc so that they aren’t among the throngs “looking” and have a plan…and stuff on hold…
This is a lack of life experience…and something that most kids haven’t done (buy furniture) So it is not a lack of intellect or ability–just a lack of experience/life. </p>
<p>Balancing the mentoring/advisement and not “doing it for them” is going well here.</p>
<p>My son and I saw it yesterday as well. I was actually shocked since we haven’t seen a movie together in years since it isn’t cool as a teen.</p>
<p>DS leaves on Tuesday. I teared up shopping yesterday. At church, he said a few words to the congregation and I couldn’t help thinking what a great kid he turned out to be.</p>
<p>Today was the first time he looked at all of the stuff I have been collecting for the dorm. He started making a list and we plan to focus on it tomorrow.</p>
<p>It has become sort of a tradition at our church that the youth sit in one area together with our youth pastor. We usually sit right across the aisle and I can normally see DS2. Today, I couldn’t see him because the young man sitting next to him was his friend who is 6-7! So, since I couldn’t see him, I didn’t cry–until the last song of the service. It was wonderful to see so many other adults wish him well after the service.</p>
<p>We made great progress in packing this afternoon and I let him make his own decisions even when I didn’t agree. We now have only a short list of things we forgot for Target tomorrow during my lunch break. We will have a laundry test with the current pile of dirty clothes. DS2 will spend tomorrow morning boxing up his video games and systems. (He has taken ownership of that part of the packing!)</p>
<p>He has an afternoon pool party at the home of a longtime friend who doesn’t leave until next week. Then he plans to go to the high school’s open house to say goodbye to his favorite teachers one more time. He especially wants to see his IB Math teacher who, we have heard, is devestated by the class’ results on the test. He says he wants to be sure that she knows he passed the Calculus I CLEP test and that he still thinks she’s the best teacher he had in high school.</p>
<p>He plans to take Prom Date 2010 to lunch on Tuesday since she is the only member of their group not going to Mizzou. (She will be two hours away in St. Louis.) They will go to Sonic as they did nearly every day after school for two years.</p>
<p>Departure from our driveway is 4 pm CT Wednesday, stopping to pick up DH at his new job in Kansas City and heading for Columbia, Mo., for dinner and one last night together in a nice hotel. </p>
<p>Roommate just dropped by to work out some bike rack logistics. His GF left today for sorority recruitment and he is transporting her bike. It won’t fit on his rack by DS2’s will. So we are taking GF’s bike. They are a good team–the six close friends who will all be in neighboring dorms. It gives me a sense of calm.</p>
<p>Of course, all six think we will take them out to dinner when we come for football games! Could be an expensive fall!</p>
<p>Hugs to all of you and your wonderful children.</p>
<p>Just got back from a week’s vacation in Vermont. I’ve tried to skim the dozen pages that I missed but, boy - that’s a lot of reading! We had a wonderful vacation with cousins, Aunt, Uncles and Grandparents - 21 people in all! It was refreshing to NOT think about college all the time, but also to be able to talk about it with my SIL who also has a College freshman to-be. I know my son had a few heart to heart talks with his cousin. They’ll have even more to share at Thanksgiving. </p>
<p>We spent one fun day on his campus looking at his new dorm room to be in Burlington. It’s a very cool converted mansion built in 1844 and houses just 39 students. He got his roommate assignment too and has spoken to one of his two roommates. He’s in a triple, but those are reportedly the larger rooms. The roommate is from a town not too far from the college. The other one is from the next state over.</p>
<p>While in Vermont, I met up with an old friend who moved to the East coast from California a few years ago and she has a friend whose son is a Junior at son’s new college. We hooked up the boys and they’ve made tentative plans to get together!</p>
<p>My husband really doesn’t want son to take a TV to college. Is anyones kids Not planning to have a TV in a dorm room?</p>
<p>No TV for my S either, though don’t know what his roommate plans. DS usually just watches a few things on Netflix streaming, so he will probably just watch occasionally on his laptop. (Cornell just raised the bandwidth limit substantially, so he should be able to do that without too many worries.) There’s always the lounge TV as well. He <em>would</em> want to take the wii with him but it’s shared with his younger brothers so he can’t take it.</p>
<p>My son doesn’t want the tv for watching tv. He has a monitor that’s pretty darn large for streaming movies, he wants one for game playing. He plays PC games normally, but with a group of people, I guess you use a console game and for them, you need a tv. This expense will NOT come out of our pocket.</p>
<p>Regarding TVs, ShawD will not take one and ShawSon did not take one as a freshman. We did not want it to distract either and they have access to virtually everything online anyway. </p>
<p>We would have left it at that but during the summer after his freshman year, ShawSon asked if he could have a TV for his room. He said he used it to relax (he’s severely dyslexic and working at a high standard tires him out) and liked to watch football games while doing homework. He said he couldn’t do that if he watched in the common room. ShawWife balked. However, ShawSon is an ambitious, determined kid – he won a prize for academic performance at the end of his freshman year. He said to ShawWife, “Have I ever done anything to suggest that I wouldn’t succeed or lose track of my priorities?” She said, “No.” He has always delivered. We got him a TV. The upshot: in his sophomore year, he got one fewer A+ and one more A- (maybe two) than freshman year but still nothing lower than an A- at an elite LAC (but he had a much more active social life and a couple of girlfriends and some very hard courses). So, constant access to a TV didn’t hurt him, but I think it could be harmful to some kids.</p>
<p>ShawSon has a PS3 but didn’t take that to college. My guess is that gaming could be a bigger problem than TV.</p>
<p>Good luck to all those making the big move this week! yikes. </p>
<p>S will be flying out in one week. H is going with him. They got the OK for early move in. S can’t stay at the dorm til Wed, but will move in on Tues in order to beat the crazyness Wednesday. I have started to put school stuff in the dining room so H can see some progress being made. He is not bringing a tv, I think his roommate is. He does want to bring his xbox 360 though. I suspect that if H sees a good deal on a TV while out dorm shopping with S on Tues they may get one. I am concerned with time management, but he has to learn sometime. :eek:</p>
<p>S’s GF leaves for school today. They spent the entire weekend together with us in Maine. They were up almost all night on Friday and til at least 3:30 on Sat. I think it will be a long day at work for S today.</p>
Son says you can’t. That was the question I asked too. Seems like you should be able to.</p>
<p>My son’s argument for the TV is that it’s for social reasons. His dorm does not have a common area, which I think is pretty weird for a converted huge house, so playing computer games in a group would be for socialization. My son has never played console games alone, that’s not an interest of his at all. Also, this son has always been extremely disciplined about time management, but he is on the shy side, so having something that would draw people to his room, is attractive to him.</p>
<p>This will be a busy week for us. We’re having our party on Sunday, the 21st, and then we’re leaving for the college the following Thursday, the 25th. And I just realized that I will be working all three days before we leave - that might have been a good time to take a vacation day!</p>
<p>Kathiep - I asked ds the same question about hooking his xbox360 up to his PC monitor instead of buying a TV - he initially said “No, can’t do it” but then when I pushed back, he did a little research and it just took two cords to connect. One was an simple radioshack one (under $1) and the other came from xbox (which was expensive until I found it on ebay for around $35). Now he’s been playing xbox for years on an old TV in the basement and since he found he could connect to his monitor which has much better/more modern graphics capability, he’s been playing on the monitor ever since! If you need the part#s, I can pm what we got.</p>
<p>My dh and I feel that S1 does not need the anti-social distraction of a TV or XBox in his room freshman year. TV’s and gaming consoles may be readily available all around him, but we feel no in-house video/gaming access will make him physically leave his room to socialize, but allow him to actually study and sleep when he is there.</p>
<p>S1 just got his roommate information - a Filipino who attended boarding school in Moscow. Something tells me even if this young man doesn’t bring any TV/Gaming hardware with him… that could change very quickly, with a quick run to Best Buy.</p>
<p>Hampshire does not have cable hook up in the dorm rooms so suggests no TVs in the rooms. Otherwise I am pretty sure D would request one. However, the common room in each wing/ floor has a big TV and cable. There is a slight chance she will go to the common room if they watch The Big Bang Theory, Eureka or Glee but she is an introvert so interacting with people all day in class is more than enough for her. Also, D got pretty adept in h.s. (during noisy study halls) and in Italy finding her shows online so will probably watch on her computer (or download from Amazon those she can’t get for free). </p>
<p>She got her schedule today and is generally happy. One class (language acquisition ) was way at the bottom of her list of 10 “acceptable” classes but she thinks she can power through it. She got her first choice advisory/tutorial with content, an ecology/natural history class that lasts all year she thinks. They also gave her another natural history class (N.H. of New England) which was surprising to her as they meet the same gen ed requirement (at least Hampshire’s version of same). As she is currently thinking of an animal husbandry/ecology major this is fine though. She is sorry she didn’t get two of her higher listed classes but figures next semester she will have more control and can see potential scheduling conflicts. </p>
<p>She just called,using a sad voice, saying that “we have forgotten that she would need a sugar dish” but she she was willing to forgo a creamer. :rolleyes: I suggested drily that maybe this could wait until her first trip home and tupperware could do for now. She reluctantly acquiesced. She is creating a home so she can cocoon in her room. I am sure this is her way of dealing with the changes, imposing order and ensuring comfort. We’ll see how it all goes.</p>
<p>On the TV and gaming–I agree the regular access can be a problem. A friend tells me her DS almost didn’t finish his dissertation (Princeton) because he was spending too much time on the xbox…this was the hs val and someone with trememdous natural brillance…so getting into the gaming/social can happen to the best of 'em.</p>
<p>Kiddo can’t take the PS3 as its a joint belonging with younger sib. Got rarely used during the school year–though in the last week here–it has been a nightly thing.</p>
<p>sigh–the roommmate asked if the xbox should come to college–we as the parents of the other roommate cannot say NO to someone elses young adult–that was DHs response. I am hoping the roommate’s parents say that maybe later in the year or something…</p>
<p>As far as we know, there won’t be a TV–unless the roommate is planning to bring or buy one…There are plenty of other suites that someone will likley have a tv or game system…</p>
<p>Well, DS is all moved in, we’ve had two days of parent orientation, and today he has his first official academic portion of orientation. His roommate and parents came to our house Friday to have a little R&R before moving to the dorm; they are wonderful people and roommate is a great kid. We are very fortunate. I can see these guys being buddies for a very long time.</p>
<p>cgpm59- Congrats on the best case scenario! </p>
<p>re TV: We were not going to get one initially but then the 3 roommates decided who was bringing what and we ended up with the TV. But no gaming system is going!!! I had a tv in my dorm room back in the day and I remember girls coming in and we watched the Winter Olympics together because others were watching a different show on the common room tv. Other than that, I don’t think it got used much.</p>
<p>My DS is probably a lot more in danger of spending too much time on PC games on his laptop than he is on console games or watching TV… but we’ve allowed him to manage his own time since freshman year of HS and he’s always been very responsible about it. I believe he’ll be just fine.</p>
<p>Does anyone else have a DC that perpetually loses coats? We’re about to invest in a serious down/waterproof/breathable coat, and wondered if anyone has any tips on how to make sure a coat does not disappear. I have thought of putting in a “If found, please call [cell number]” tag, maybe even with a reward promised for return, but other ideas would be much appreciated.</p>
<p>Also, has anyone ever tried bamboo/cotton towels? Supposedly, they dry much quicker, are less prone to mildew if tossed in a corner (surely we’re not the only ones with that problem), etc.</p>
<p>September 18 gives me way too much time to obsess!</p>
<p>D leaves Wednesday morning early. About 5% packed. Been spending a ton of time with friends and shopping. She is most definitely soiling the nest. The whole world revolves around her. I don’t want our last two days together to be “snarky,” but my patience is wearing thin. She has no appreciation for how much she needs to get done and how much this family has supported her up to this point. She is a great kid and I am sure most of this behavior is a result of her working through leaving, going across the country, etc. BUT she is really being mean. </p>
<p>We hosted a get together for the graduated seniors on her team and their families. It was lovely. I will miss the girls and their moms. We’ve spent a lot of time with each other in carpools, carb-ups, meets, and social stuff. After everyone left, unpleasant D reappeared. </p>
<p>And today, I get to pay her tuition. And, I have spent pretty much all my vacation in the last two years on this damn college process and now move in. </p>
<p>Thanks for letting me vent. Glad that others are having some special moments with their kids and wondering what the heck I did wrong…</p>