<p>We finally received an unsolicited phone call last night. Wanting to know if he could use our credit card to buy some clothes. Yes, we said absolutely, go ahead, knock yourself out. He is so fruggle, takes after my wife. Bless his heart that he would think to ask. He spent less than $100. We were thrilled to hear from him, thrilled to hear that he would ask permission, and mostly thrilled to know that we could somehow contribute to him having a good day, a fun night, shopping. He never shops. Must have gotten tired of wearing the same old clothes. Guess it will be another month, or so, before he contacts us. What communication occurs is still due to us initiating the calls. Oh well. We love him so.</p>
<p>I talk to my kids a lot. I mean a lot. Very little of it is personal, especially with DS. The content of the calls is intellectual.</p>
<p>Just today I learned from D: You can't teach American Studies without teaching Christian theology (I knew this from teaching first half of American Lit Survey, but I played along) and that John Winthrop had a wonderful perspective because he was a lawyer, not a theologian.</p>
<p>From S I learned that Harvey's contribution to medicine, the discovery of the circulatory system, is considered the most significant medical advance. Also that Cartesian ideas forwarded concepts of the body from a kind of animism to the metaphor of a machine.</p>
<p>DS also wanted to tell me how he explained significance of matrilineal customs in the Iliad and that Paris can't take Achilles sword because it was given by his father, a symbol of the Y chromosome, and that this appears in Arthurian tales and others as well.</p>
<p>We share the same intellectual project, each of them staking out a different territory of the intellectual context I live in, and they call to talk about this with me. Like comrades, colleagues.</p>
<p>They don't tell me about social life, problems, successes, well D does a bit. She does complain when one of her friends is particularly annoying, but S never does.</p>
<p>This year has been different from last year. After the accident my S had, he realized the importance of the family and he calls every single day just to talk about things around the school, his classes, his dreams and even comments about show he watched on TV or the video games he played during the weekend (never the weekdays games ;)). Whenever he calls, his sweet voice is music to my ears and I feel like he isn’t so far away. My D didn’t call at the beginning of the year, but she changed after the accident too, and now she calls regularly, sometimes three or four times a day, sometimes every other day, sometimes her call comes with a list of things to buy, sometimes she just wants to talk. None of them are email writers so whenever a send them emails I don’t expect replies.
After 19 years my H and I are alone again, a little strange but nice; I think that we’re learning to let our kids go finding enjoyable the empty nest.</p>
<p>It has been nice to find this thread and I see bits & pieces in different posts of what we are going through with our son away at college. It is the first time since he left that I have found some people who truly understand the emotions and realities of having a DS or DD away at college!</p>
<p>I hear from my DS about once a week for 15 or 20 minutes and sometimes a few short calls in between to ask about something. He's happy and we are looking forward to seeing him at Family Weekend. He did buy his first winter coat this past weekend & that involved a few phone calls <vbg>. He's never needed to have one, so he was quite excited.</vbg></p>
<p>"DS also wanted to tell me how he explained significance of matrilineal customs in the Iliad and that Paris can't take Achilles sword because it was given by his father, a symbol of the Y chromosome, and that this appears in Arthurian tales and others as well."</p>
<p>I'll bet it wasn't a Y chromosome that Homer was visualizing....</p>
<p>No, but it is now a scientific representation of the unbroken line that passes from fathers to sons without any genetic material from the mother. </p>
<p>Myth and symbol often intuit and predict scientific fact.</p>
<p>jhumom: Wow! I can't imagine buying a first winter coat when I think of all the snow suits he had to struggle kids into. What did he get?</p>
<p>He bought a "Northface" jacket - it is almost bomber jacket style or so it looks in the picture he sent. He made sure to get it big enough that he could wear a sweatshirt under it if needed.</p>
<p>Great news Helms. You know what new clothes means in mid-October? ;)</p>
<p>Could be a sweetie on the horizon....</p>
<p>I went to architecture school, held down an RA position for an entire building, did freelance draughting and was a TA. Nonetheless, I was not busy when busy is defined by running 13 projects with a staff of 8 to 50 whilst serving on a board and meeting the needs of two growing boys and one darling husband. Yup, I was on vacation in college and os is every college student I know.</p>
<p>Mine think they are busy too. One has two jobs on top of his demanding grad level course load. The other one has started up a little company to earn extra funds. I giggle when they whinge.</p>
<p>cheers: I really think you should go as Superwoman for Halloween! You're amazing.</p>
<p>Jhumom: I love bomber jackets.</p>
<p>I was busy in college doing ahem....Classes were often an interruption.</p>
<p>This evening I learned from my son why the BCS system is a complete and utter failure. BCS, as in Bowl Championship Series. </p>
<p>This from a kid who last touched a piece of sporting equipment in first grade but whose dream career is suddenly sports journalism.</p>
<p>Wonders really do never cease. I did pretend to be fascinated at the historic ineptitude and galling unfairness of the BCS system, but, since we were on the phone, I was secretly reading the LA Times while he explained it all. I did enjoy the passion in his voice and made appropriate murmers at appropriate times. ;)</p>
<p>Unbelievable. Three word email just arrived from freshman son:</p>
<p>"Any home news?" </p>
<p>The first glimmer of interest since last August. I tapped out some
things about the animals, and a full recount of the Steve Colbert
interview on Larry King because that's what we'd talk about if he were home.</p>
<p>But he's happy and that makes me very happy. Long may it wave.</p>
<p>Our freshman S ended his last email with this: </p>
<p>"Also, if you guys want to come up for a weekend to visit you are welcome. Things have calmed down a bit so it wouldn't be inconvenient for you guys to come for a couple days."</p>
<p>It is a 6-hour drive form our house to his school so it's nice to know it would not be inconvenient for him if we visited!!</p>
<p>Well, maybe that means he wants you to visit in boyspeak.</p>
<p>boyspeak, LOL, it really is a code sometimes</p>
<p>Mythmom, my Dad and I used to visit by having intellectual conversation. He was that way with adults, too. It was his comfort zone. He, too, was a college professor. Unlike you, however, he just couldn't talk socially, so we all knew this about him. He simply could relax by talking ideas, and I loved it. '
'
The other thing he did was use the weather report as boyspeak code for "I'm concerned about you, I love you.." as in uber-detailed reports of our highway journey on the way home right before we drove. This was long before Internet, so he really had to research it. He was a weatherman in WWII, advising from London whether it was safe for planes to take off over Europe. When my H first met him as a propsective SIL, he asked me about my Dad's boyspeak..."What's with so much talk about the weather?" I said that's his way of saying, "Drive safely, I love you." </p>
<p>I can imagine you and your son yakking about the Iliad on cellphones. :) along with many other things of course!</p>
<p>When my freshman S last year asked me to send the rest of his good shirts (I think he only took two with him) I just about fell over.</p>
<p>And yes, there was a sweetie on the horizon. She's still around a year later, too!</p>
<p>My son is a sophomore. He calls weekly but doesn't offer much. We have to ask lots of questions to get him to share what is going on. He doesn't respond to my emails that just say "how are you". I'm angry and sad about this. I miss him and feel so much better when he is in touch.</p>
<p>Averagewoman, me too. I'm hoping this will change as he gets more comfortable being away and doesn't feel he has to shut us out in order to be independent.</p>
<p>VeryHappy,</p>
<p>That is exactly what has happened with our sophomore son. This year he calls at random times, usually when he's walking somewhere. That didn't happen much last year. I do notice that I get fewer calls when all is well than I do when he has some sort of problem.</p>
<p>my son is a sophomore, too. i am very glad that he's very happy this year. however, i do miss hearing from him. i am trying not to feel bad about not talking to him much, but it's hard. i will see him in about 3 weeks. it's just hard having him so far away.</p>
<p>paying3: I love your father's boyspeak too.</p>
<p>To everyone else: sorry about my post. I cringe when I read it, because it sounds like bragging. At that moment I was just elated about having this intellectual collegiality with my son, but I wouldn't want to make anyone else feel bad.</p>
<p>And I miss him very much, too.</p>
<p>Forgive my insensitivity.</p>