He Came and Went!

Well, our oldest came home from college for summer, but alas, he’s already gone! It was a quick three weeks. He left today for Seattle, where he’ll have a summer internship with Seattle Met magazine, which I think sounds uber-fun.

He had three fast weeks of:

  • Sleeping in (check)
  • Eating Oreos (check)
  • Eating food that someone else paid for and made (check)
  • Visiting his grandparents (two nice visits: check, check)
  • Going to our favorite Mexican-food restaurant, Don Joses (check, check)
  • Eating In-N-Out (check, check, check)
  • Watching endless hours of Arrested Development (check)
  • Going to an Angels game (check, check)
  • Hanging out with old high school friends (which is hard because they’re mostly still in school at their respective colleges) (but — check, check, check)
  • Work out at his old gym (check)
  • Hang out a little with his sibs (check)

And we had three fast weeks of him!

I’ll miss him again, but I’m so excited for him to spend a summer in the heart of Seattle, editing and writing and soaking in a new city …

End-of-the-School-Year Craziness

Ah, the end of the school year. This is where things get really crazy. Turning in books, verifying grades, trying to scramble for that last “B,” banquets, parties, permission slips, yearbooks, school dances, teacher gifts, dress-shoes for promotions … the list goes on and on. Moms everywhere know what I’m talking about.

Rene is in a showdown with a crazy retiring-in-two-minutes teacher who has left the entire class bewildered with “missing assignments” notes when she left for some kind of surgery and has never returned. The substitutes have been bewildered also. The kids have all been glumly picking up slips for summer school. But there might be a knight in shining armor who swooped in to finish the last two weeks as the “permanent substitute” (there’s a fun phrase). And here’s the kicker – he had this same teacher years ago when he was at the school! So he feels very sympathetic toward the students and says he believes in “transparency” and “online grades” (thank you, sir!) and has vowed to get all their grades online so they can check to see what they’re really missing and if they’ve perhaps already turned it in. So, with 1 week left, we’re ending on a cliffhanger, here. I hope everything works out for Rene.

Nathan, meanwhile, is experiencing spring fever like I’ve never seen a child experience spring fever. My two older kids have always really liked school, and seem to stay motivated until the end. But this child. … hmmm … He just wants to head to the beach every single day. Since about May 1. Poor dude. But he’s almost done, too. We remind him of the countdown every day.

Summer, oh summer – We can’t wait to see you next week!

P.S. I also think we must be the LAST district out for summer???

Another Goodbye. …

It actually gets a little easier each time, watching my son walk away at five-thirty in the morning, get on a plane at LAX, head to his new life 1200 miles away. …

It gets easier because I’m so proud of him, and so proud of how he’s navigating life almost all on his own now.  Despite the fact he was just a little pipsqueak up to my knee just … yesterday, wasn’t it? … he now navigates all these airports with no problem, navigates his life at school, gets to his newspaper job in the middle of the night, buys his own groceries, makes his own meals. … It’s kind of an amazing thing, actually, watching your kids become adults.

And seeing them forge forward through life with resourcefulness and confidence. …

I guess those — along with your love and respect and adoration — are some of the greatest gifts you can give. …

 

Taking Our Kids To “The City”

Although I had dedicated myself to a fiction-writing deadline that stole away pretty much every weekend of November, in the middle of it all I planned a four-day weekend getaway. … Yeah. Smart move. I don’t know what I was thinking. …

Well, actually I do. What I was thinking was: I’ve always wanted to take my kids to San Francisco. Rene is a junior already. My time is running out. November and San Francisco are a beautiful combo. I can’t let their childhoods slip by. …

So, despite the writing deadlines, off to Expedia I went, to plan something fun.

And here’s the thing: No regrets. Not one.

(I wrote once before how I never regretted a vacation, and that still stands. Despite all my before-we-go worries about money and time, little trips with my family always end up making up the bulk of my memories, and will probably be with me until I’m 100.)

Anyway, why San Francisco?  Continue reading

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