<p>Anything. As long as you at least bother to pretend to be excited about them going to college they’ll be grateful. I know I would be :D</p>
<p>P.S.: Winnie the Pooh notes will make me cry any day!</p>
<p>We went for comic relief instead of sentiment when S left last year. We filled a small gladware-type container with “funny” things and attached little notes. Luckily H is very witty so the notes were not too lame and many were inside family jokes. </p>
<p>Examples: nail fungus cream and a reminder to wear flipflops to the dorm showers, hang-over pills with a reminder that he is not yet 21 and shouldn’t need these, Aloe vera gel for when he forgot to use sunscreen during band camp and other things related to family jokes about not doing drugs and not having sex or you’ll die (a take off of a madTV skit, I think)…things like that. </p>
<p>It was topped with a small funny card and a reminder from us that he is a smart kid and that he should rely on that when in doubt in any situation and that we trust him to make good decisions and if he should ever not he can always call us.</p>
<p>He NEVER mentioned it…but as we were helping him move in this year (he was a few hours ahead of us) we saw the box on a shelf by his desk with the opened card and it still looked full - I figured I wouldn’t snoop and find out something I didn’t want to know 
But it sure made us feel good!</p>
<p>Tip for build-a-bear - you can go in and just buy the noise maker so you can record it on your own or make sure you get everyone you want in the short time on it. Also, what I have done when build-a-bear didn’t have the right animal/bear we wanted I bought just the noisemaker and sewed it in to a stuffed animal bought elsewhere (just find an inconspicious part of the seam and open/sew it closed).</p>
<p>Aw, yeah, momfirst, I stayed close to home, half an hour away, and I’m my parents’ oldest. My little sister, their only other child, is up at Kent 4 hours away.</p>
<p>Zoosermom: That has to be the best quote I have heard. Leave it to Winnie the Pooh!</p>
<p>There are so many great ideas I will have to check back here when it is closer to launch time. I have already decided that since S is into comic books, I am going to send him a different one each week. This way he will have some fun reading to break up all of the serious reading and papers.</p>
<p>The past few weeks DD and her long time friends have been getting together and doing things they did when they were young - popping popcorn and watching a marathon of favorite cartoons, going to the beach and making sand castles and playing chicken in the water, re-enacting some of the stupid dares/memorable moments they had as a group, making s’mores at the backyard firepit, horsing around on their school’s payground equipment, doing their best tricks on the trampoline, etc. (these same kids spent June and July at concerts/raves, jetskiing and wakeboarding, eating out, going to friends’ parties - the usual teenager stuff). It has been fun watching them interact as naturally as they did when they were younger.</p>
<p>I hope my DD will be pleasantly surprised when she opens her “Fun and Games” bin full of bubbles and wands, vampire fangs, mardi gras beads, paper hats, coloring books/ markers, frisbees, shrinky dink/origami paper, and an album full of pictures of the group horsing around with similar toys through the years. She can share the fun with her new friends at college.</p>
<p>On the list of things to do I have made a note to write a going away letter to my son. Thanks to this thread, I have started it and have easily used at least 12 tissues and I’ve only written one paragraph! :-/ </p>
<p>ZMom - that is one of my favorite Pooh quotes and you can add another crying mama to your belt notch. ;-)</p>
<p>I know there is another thread I read last year that had my eyes really streaming. I’ll see if I can find it.</p>
<p>I left my D a card with instructions not to open it till after we’d left, featuring a “Mom’s Top 10” list. I can’t remember them all now, but they included: Eat lots of fruits and veggies. A good night’s sleep makes everything just a little better. Make time for fun every day. Ask questions. Do something nice for someone. Remember that you are loved.</p>
<p>We also gave her Apples-2-Apples as a room-warming gift.</p>
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<p>And another!</p>
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<p>Pengo, please spare us!</p>
<p>I love the idea of mailing a card to be there the first day the student checks his or her mail. I’m going to do this for both kids - S1 ('13) in his new student rental house and S2 ('14) in his dorm.</p>
<p>Gee, you people are so creative.</p>
<p>Whatever happened to the classic approach of just slipping your kid an extra 50 bucks just before you leave campus?</p>
<p>So my eldest son did not even want the sentimental farewell gift I would have gotten for him. He turned it down! It was a misunderstanding, actually.</p>
<p>We were in the college town pharmacy the night before dorm move-in, buying various supplies. I was muttering about how much everything costs in a pharmacy.</p>
<p>Suddenly, I saw a huge display of his favorite chocolate bars. “I’m going to buy you some of THOSE!” I said happily. He got all embarassed, “No mom, really, please don’t; if I want any of those I can buy them myself.” </p>
<p>Turns out HE was staring at a huge display of condoms, right next to the chocolates. </p>
<p>Simple misunderstanding.</p>
<p>That is hilarious!</p>
<p>Love the chocolate/condom story and I can’t just imagine the look of panic on your son’s face!</p>
<p>^ very much so. His utter panic met my utter confusion. I couldn’t fathom it. When in August did he outgrow his fondness for chocolate? How had I missed that? They grow up too fast!</p>
<p>My son’s 18th birthday was the week after he moved in so while we were on campus I visited Kroger and ordered a sheet cake to be delivered on his bday and arranged with his RA to call the floor together for cake - it was on the day of the first football game of the season so they had a nice surprise party for him.</p>
<p>Thanks MereMom & LasMa, I’ve been trying to come up with something different for D next year since she knew what we did for her brother and we just aren’t a mushy-type family so she would expect something fun.</p>
<p>I found an old Barney washcloth from a zillion years ago and tucked it into her large box of linens with a note that says “Barney went to college!”</p>
<p>I have a gift suggestion that’s a bit corny…
There is a book by Dr. Seuss that’s called “Oh, the places you’ll go” and it’s about sending your children off into the world to discover things…it is a simple book about encouragement and new beginnings…I agree with everyone who said that they’ll be a basket case full of tears…we are applying to colleges now, so by next summer I will be bringing S1 to college…I am hoping that the school year goes by very slowly so I can savor his senior year and enjoy everything with him before we bring him to college next summer. I like all the other ideas too, maybe I’ll do a small photo album, get some gift cards, give him this book, etc. Yeah, I guess money helps too! :)</p>
<p>@ vballmom - don’t worry - I got completely distracted and was unsuccessful at finding that thread. ;-)</p>
<p>I am not so good at searching on this site. :-/</p>
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I’m betting that dad and grandma will do that very thing.</p>