<p>Ooooooh SHINY! I recommend vacuum sealing of the new graduate, for longest freshness. Wouldn't want any freezer burn, now, would we.</p>
<p>Many congrats to SluggJr and the Slugg Family, and everyone else who's just leaped over this hurdle!! You all deserve some laughter and cheers and pats upon the back and a nice cool drink of something relaxing. I'm hoping (beyond my wildest dreams) to be leaping with the '07 graduate parents a year from now. Hey! Could TJFH catch the "will he or won't he make it to graduation" mantle from SluggJr? Uh oh... I just realized that my kid may now have to be referred to as TSFH, he's a senior now! </p>
<p>(I'd leap with you just for cameraderie, but I found out yesterday I've got this pesky small fracture along with the ankle sprain, and I"m now in a highly attractive walking boot cast thingie, in matte black. I'll look so lovely at my friend's wedding in a couple weeks, sigh... No hiking in the Austrian Alps for me at the end of the month. I'm resigning myself to taking the waters at the mineral spa for a few days and sipping newly-popular Austrian wines while everyone else hikes and gets all sweaty and exhausted. Heh. Coincidence? I think not. Um, er, I mean, "Oh, that's unfortunate." Heh.)</p>
<p>Congrats to the Sluggs. God bless them, every one.
[quote]
Final? What final? I didn't know we had a FINAL!"
[/quote]
Soon you will join us MOS (mothers of sons) in the advanced version of these communiques:</p>
<p>Eg, "I don't know who my advisor is" .... "Where is the financial aid office?" (4 weeks after he was supposed to turn in the form for his housing waiver)... All IM'd from his dorm room 1600 miles closer to the source than I am. Well, I admit that these tidbits are not quite so High Stakes as the "...didn't know we had a FINAL" maneuver.</p>
<p>But, the important thing is: YOU HAVE THE SHEEPSKIN! What do we have to drink in this joint made with sheep's milk? Kahlua Milk Punch (ewe version) all around! On jmmom.</p>
<p>I too see SluggS on the cover of People. That line will become famous as spoken by his character in some kind of sitcom. I'm thinking he's the white Will Smith. No? </p>
<p>Sluggie, enjoy. Congrats from all us Sinner's.</p>
<p>And Mootmom - well, darn. Spa-ing it in Austria. We will do our best to feel very very bad for you:).</p>
<p>Boys. Sigh. Every week produces a few classic lines.</p>
<p>"Mom, I can't find my script! I've just realized the play is in six weeks and I need to start memorizing."</p>
<p>Nevermind that he is one of the leads and rehearsing who knows what 20 hours a week. I haven't had any calls from the drama master so I'll assume it's all good.</p>
<p>"Hi cheers! This is Mr X (father of S2's best friend). Ms X and I want to invite you over to see our new renovations! By the way, did you know that while we were out of toown, your son and another boy broke into our house to watch sports and eat pizza?"</p>
<p>No...no, I didn't know that. What idiot would do that when he could watch the game at home and eat pizza? MY idiot, that's who! The one who claimed he made a good decision becaue the boy who actually opened the door using a golf club through the cat door was drunk and texted 10 other drunks to join them before my idiot knew what was happening. My idiot, sober at least, thought he would play good cop and confine the drunks to the TV room and throw them out when the game was over. </p>
<p>Boy who lived in the house went to the actual game --thinking he had locked my idiot and the other boy out. No doubt he was told not to entertain his friends but do they listen?</p>
<p>Best of all--game was played in thick fog. Nothing but white fuzz with some shadowy figures running about. Not a shred of reasoning in the whole episode.</p>
<p>Oh, Cheers! My sympathies! Breaking and entering seems to be on the list of fun things to do for teenage guys. Also on the list, pouring a bottle of cooking oil on the kitchen floor in a rented house so that you and your friends can ice skate. That guy is now living on his parents' ranch somewhere in Middle Earth. "Ranch" is code for Your-Ass-Is-Grass Town. ;)</p>
<p>Little black confetti mortarboards are starting to decorate the kitchen floor. The giant Mylar 2006 balloons are still flapping around in the driveway, although the "6" is starting to sag. The sluggmen are packing for their dad/grad trip to Bonnaroo this week. On the way to Manchester (TN), they will stop at a farm to visit some Tennessee Fainting goats. SluggJr is as excited about these goats as he is about the concert. Besides flying lessons ("I can fly home on the weekends at night!"), he wants to keep one of these goats at the student farm on campus. In case you're interested: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we9_CdNPuJg%5B/url%5D">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we9_CdNPuJg</a> </p>
<p>Yadda-yadda about getting a pet fainting goat and taking flying lessons and saving up his money to buy a used Mercedes with a converted engine that runs on cooking oil (I do not understand this fixation with cooking oil, btw), and he said something about a motorcycle...It's gonna be a long summer. :o</p>
<p>Reading these posts by cheers and slugg, and reviewing the usually prostrate form of my own dearest S, it has finally dawned on me that the characteristic of my D that most annoys me, her bossiness, is actually a service to the species. Clearly D, with her lists and her plans and her "don't forgets" and her eye-rolling, and her sighs of "Mother" is only practicing for the day when she runs the household for someone's S who only recently got up off the sofa or out of the cooking-oil kitchen or extricated himself from some not quite criminal activity.</p>
<p>So I will NOT kill D, it would be bad for the human race. Clearly she is needed somewhere.</p>
<p>slugg, how funny: my D loves the fainting goats too...!</p>
<p>Here's what I love/hate about teenaged boys. Within maximum 24 hours of being big-time BUSTED for an act of larceny, felony, or complete idiocy, they will have bounced back to their set-point of grinning cocky arrogance-- like some sort of Romper Room Clown-- BOING! I'm baaaaaack!</p>
<p>Makes you just wanna smack 'em right back down... but they don't stay down!</p>
<p>My son did something UNMENTIONABLE this week. Unmentionable in Sinner's Alley! :eek:</p>
<p>Within 24 hours he was trying to convince me of his excellent-- no, superior-- judgement.</p>
<p>Alu, you are right... these men need some super strong women to kick their a$$ses and keep them in line. We, their moms, are ready to retire-- bring on the bossy love interests!</p>
<p>The thing is SBMom, you know as well as I do that these super strong women may not kick their butts. These women will probably gaze at our boys adoringly and run the house without the male creatures knowing what is happening. Which is why the male creatures will leave us, their mothers, and run off to the female creature who provides similar organizational skills but without the mom glare in her eyes:).</p>
<p>Not all men have that bounce back quality, but my S2 has it in spades. Initially, his current deputy headmaster advised against keeping him in the school--given the number of detentions S2 had as a 12 year old. Mind you, this is a school with twenty different detention options--from 30 minutes of sweeping after school to 6 hours hard labour on a Sunday. Poor naive man. S2 'broken' by the strictness of the place? Ptoooey! That's water off a duck's back for S2, now a BMOC.</p>
<p>He's PT Barnum too, SBMom. "I can't believe you are taking my phone when I made so many good decisions! Don't you want me to make good decisions?"</p>
<p>As for bossy female love interests....careful what you wish for girls....they aren't all Alu-D. Some of them boss idiot boys into taking out their credit cards (which are funded by their parents) in order to indulge bossy girl beyond belief. Grrrrrrrrr.</p>
<p>Can't we have even the TINIEST hint about the UNMENTIONABLE category, SB? I really need a dose of someone else's problem to make mine feel better. Wah! Wah!</p>
<p><strong><em>Brief change of subject</em></strong>
We were in Lancaster, PA last weekend to see CM-D in her show "Crazy for You"(she is a dancer and a singer) and we finally got to meet her college boyfriend's parents (well, maybe it isn't a total change of subject, just a change of perspective????) who drove down from Connecticut to meet us and see the show. His mom, unfortunately, broke her foot last weekend and is now on crutches and, obviously, uncomfortable. As my D excused herself from our delightful "get to know you" dinner to go get ready for the evening performance, the boyfriend's mom started to wish her the traditional "Break a leg!!!" salutation......</p>
<p>And then thought it might not sound that good coming from her!</p>
<p><strong><em>and now, back to your original program</em></strong></p>
<p>I'm not caught up on this thread unfortunately as I have not been online and just read the last few posts. </p>
<p>ChurchmusicMom, that's a cute story. I can relate. As you know, my second D is a musical theater performer (and dancer) as well. Last year, she fractured her pelvis and now has five metal screws in it. Luckily she is back to performing. However, ever since that injury, we have stopped saying "Break a leg" before her performances. I just can't do it and so now I am saying "break an arm" as a joke of sorts. "Break a leg" also was confusing at times because my other D is a ski racer and I had to remember not to use "break a leg" before her events! I try to just say "go fast". I gotta keep this all straight now.</p>
<p>Glad you got to see your D's show at the theater she is at this summer! My D is heading off this weekend for the rest of summer to a professional theater out of state too and we'll go and see her in a show as well eventually.</p>
<p>Man, SA has been stuck on page 2 for TWO DAYS! Where is everybody? To get the ball rolling again, I'll share that my son, home from his first year of college, has gone for a day hike with two friends. It's a blowy, grey day here in the Seattle metro area, with an 80% chance of rain, and they're headed to the mountains, where it is always wetter. He is, of course, wearing jeans, a cotton t-shirt, and a cotton hoody jacket. He has lunch, a big bag of trail mix, but a rather small bottle of water. </p>
<p>I know where they are headed, so I can tell Search and Rescue where to look for the dehydrated, hypothermic little bodies. My question is, do I have to wait until he is out of the hospital and recovered from exposure to say, "I told you to take the hiking clothes, the Gore-tex jacket, and a LARGE bottle of water", or can I murmur it into his ear while he is still bed-ridden?</p>