<p>^^ well that’s just nice…</p>
<p>you are all giving me a good laugh and also making my past feelings when D came home for vacations and summers seem normal. I have two friends who “love” having their kids home no matter what the mess, cost or inconvenience. So I never could vent to them. I also loved having my (now 24) D home but was still bothered by the mess, cost and weird weird hours. It is all so bittersweet.</p>
<p>Ah, oregon, it has been therapeutic for me as well.</p>
<p>DD is a great kid, but when everyone said, “Oh, I bet you can’t wait for her to come home,” I gamely smiled and said, “OH, yes!” </p>
<p>And I was being honest, to a point. I was happy for her to come home, but I knew that the summer after freshman year would be rocky.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for your stories. I will remember to just shut her bedroom door and not think about the landfill behind it.</p>
<p>As long as she gets herself to work on time (she is actually very conscientious about that) I won’t complain on her days off that she doesn’t emerge until after noon. Is it breakfast if you are eating it at 1:00?</p>
<p>I won’t ask why she is on her computer at 2 or 3 in the morning because I now understand that really is the only time when her friends are available to chat.</p>
<p>I will not question why her table manners have deteriorated - well, actually I will question why, I just won’t verbalize the question.</p>
<p>Is there an Al Anon-like group for recovering moms?</p>
<p>Truth be told, as of day eight, we are doing okay. I really do appreciate knowing that other kids are no different from mine. It helps me accept that she is a pretty typical 19 year old - self-absorbed and trying to establish a pseudo-independence.</p>
<p>I will also avoid the mom who loves to yap on about how her DD sometimes just likes to SURPRISE her by cleaning the whole house while she is at work…</p>
<p>This first summer must be hard for them. The intensity and whirlwind of the past eight or nine months has all of a sudden come to a screeching halt. Maybe summer jobs haven’t started yet, or if they have, they certainly are a different kind of schedule than they had during the year. So, either they are figuring out what to do with their time, or they are balancing a new kind of responsibility. And, they are missing their friends (boy- or girlfriend as well), and for many of them, they are missing the learning process. It’s hard to have tough expectations of them, don’t you think? AND, they have changed. They are not the “children” they were when they left, and we may not really know them. I say, give them (and ourselves!) a break. It is absolutely correct to continue to have family-type expectations (courteous phone calls, polite exchanges, hugs once in a while! etc.) but we have to redefine so much, don’t we…</p>
<p>It feels good to read this thread. Landfills behind bedroom doors. 3am-3pm sleep schedules. LOTS of eating. Great to know this is normal.
I have to say that the sleep schedule drives me CRAZY!
S has had a hard time finding paid work since he’s off to a study abroad program in just a couple of weeks. We’ve been giving him an opportunity to earn some money by doing big jobs here…like powering washing the house.<br>
Good Things? He does his own laundry. He has emptied the dishwasher w/o prompting a few times (unheard of when he was in hs). He mows the lawn. It’s great to sit down to dinner with him again. He loves watching baseball with us (we’re all going to a game soon!). Overall, I really do like having him home…despite all the weirdness. And no, we haven’t experienced the girls sleeping in the bedroom routine…really not sure how I would react to that.</p>
<p>I hated the summer I spent at home after my freshman year. And I didn’t even have disagreements with my parents – we got along just fine. The whole experience was boring and frustrating after college, and only served to teach me that (a) I really didn’t want to earn my living doing manual labor, (b) I would have to take responsibility for figuring out how to get better summer jobs somewhere else, and (c) I shouldn’t plan on long visits home in the future. My wife had pretty much the same experience.</p>
<p>I love my kids to death, and I don’t really give a hoot about sleeping schedules or random friends of either sex who may wind up on the floor. Nevertheless, I told my older child not to come home for the summer after her freshman year. She came home anyway . . . and hated it (even though there were hardly any parent-child fights). She didn’t come home last summer (except for a week’s visit), and she won’t this summer either. Neither will her younger brother, who has always shown admirable ability to profit from his sister’s experience.</p>
<p>Franglish - you are absolutely correct. I work with young adults and I am all too aware of how this is a time growth and independence. Unfortunately, college places them in an extended (and unnatural) state of dependency on their families - so they are in a limbo of sorts. I can be SOOOO philosophical and helpful with other people’s children. That’s why I love this forum. For those of us who are told daily how good we are with young adults, it helps to just admit that sometimes we are not feeling quite so patient with our own.</p>
<p>We’re not having any problems with the reentry of our freshman D. We love having her home for the summer. Yes, her room is a disaster zone and there’s stuff all over, and she’s on the 3 a.m.- 3 p.m. sleep cycle like the other kids mentioned on this thread. But the saving grace in our house is that she managed to find a job at a summer camp, which starts June 30. It’s a day camp, so she’ll out of the house early in the morning and back home in the afternoon. I’m hoping she’ll be too exhausted to stay up late. </p>
<p>Until then, she’s doing an unpaid internship at a local cultural center three days a week. The hours aren’t too taxing, 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., so she’s able to relax and see friends. I’ve enjoyed seeing her friends too!</p>
<p>I think my D’s jobs are the reason we’re all so happy. Last summer was super stressful in that she graduated late in June and couldn’t find a job after that. Maybe another thing that’s helping is that we live in a large city with lots of things to do, and the kids can get around by themselves on public transportation and don’t need to drive. So I buy her a Metrocard and she’s happy.</p>
<p>LurkNessMonster, I can totally relate. The first time my son was home for a month on break it was unbelievable. He’ll be home again in August, so 2nd time around I hope goes a little smoother.</p>
<p>all the best from .. I feel your pain …
[crystal</a> awards](<a href=“http://www.abletrophies.com/]crystal”>http://www.abletrophies.com/)</p>
<p>I know my S spent his last summer home when 17. He’ll graduate soon, but will stay on campus for summer. Thats truly become his home, and I’m sure it must feel bittersweet to move away. I guess I need a dog.</p>
<p>I miss those nights with 4-6 kids staying over. I still find reasons to bake and have lots of others eating them as quickly as I produce.</p>
<p>I guess I’m like LurkNM. Older son is back after one semester away in grad school (maybe it wasn’t long enough?) and I’m glad he’s back for the summer, even if he is couch potato/leaves his stuff everywhere/doesn’t talk much/is extremely nocturnal. It’s nice to see he’s more outgoing, and I just like it that he’s in the house. S2 is leaving in the fall, and I doubt that he will be back for more than brief visits as he is counting hours until he can leave our small town. We have been very heavily “invested” ($/time/energy) in his music preparation, so it will be not only be empty nest but withdrawal from those preoccupations that will trouble us most. BTW, excessive neatness is not one of my character traits, so clutter/mess doesn’t faze me.</p>
<p>I think I would love to have my daughter home for the summer, but she has found a job at school, and will be spending the summer there. Most of her friends won’t be home for the summer either. So she probably would have had a horrible time here. So it’s probably just as well.</p>
<p>Okay LKM & Tango - make those of us who are whining feel like terrible parents…</p>
<p>^^^ I’ve certainly done my share of complaining in the past! :)</p>
<p>I’m hereby joining the ranks of the complaining, terrible parents. The worse summer of my entire life was my Ds first summer home from college – the stuff, the mess, the noise, the demands, the confrontations – horrible. She then got an apartment on campus and only comes home on some weekends. Her visits are surprisingly calm now, since she has had the experience of multiple messy, loud, inconsiderate apartment-mates.</p>
<p>I wish my mom kissed me goodbye before going to work lol</p>
<p>My one son came home from college and bought himself and big fat meatball sub, sat down at the kitchen table to eat it and have his drink when he noticed forlorn eyes and hungry faces watching him. When you have little brothers, that is not a cool thing to do. When it’s each man for himself in a house at college, you do that sort of thing without a thought. Son sheepishly, cut the sub into quarters and shared.</p>
<p>^^^^ lol, I can just picture it!</p>
<p>D is complaining that now that S is home from college she is going to lose weight because he is eating all HER food. “Her” food being the junk food, of course. Seriously, our food bill dropped when he left, but I went grocery shopping on Saturday thinking the food would last a week and as of this afternoon it was all gone. I forgot how much 19 year old boys can eat… </p>
<p>But I’m really glad he’s home. Re-entry wasn’t too bad, although he’s still on “college time” (kind of like west coast time, he goes to be and gets up 3 hours later than the rest of us here on the east coast). And he even mowed the lawn today, and found a few places that are hiring summer help and brought home the applications! Now if he’ll just fill out the applications and bring them back tomorrow… I’ll be really happy!</p>
<p>Our house is not going to be like a dorm. More like a hotel. S will be coming home soon, and various chums are staying in town. At least one will be staying at our house through the summer. Others are going to be coming at various times. One niece will also be visiting before heading back to France. I think I’m going to stock up on towels.</p>
<p>cptofthehouse-Great parenting! How sweet that he saw his brothers hungry faces! and shared. Nice!
One of the BEST things I established at our house was the “dinner hour”. My D would hungrily ask (loves my cooking-nice) and my S would be asking and and and..
I would feel so pressured-I finally said, “Dinner will be on the table at 6:30 every night. Let me know if you will here. Do not ask me, ever again, about dinner.” And that has saved my sanity. I am no longer hassled by their needs and just plan my day around this one single event.
I am sure this sounds silly to many of you but, others, I just know will say, "YES!’ Gosh the food ($$$$) and all is a bit!</p>