7 months to empty nesters????

[digitS']

And then, some colleges require their 1st year students to live on campus even when the parents have a home only a few miles away!

DD worked for that nearby school for the first two summers and continued to live in university housing. She also continued with course work during those months. This private university had given her a 4 year free-ride scholarship and only her housing had to be paid out of pocket. She got around some of that by taking summer jobs on campus.

She was the youngest and she never moved back home!!

Steve

 

[Beekissed]

It always makes me sad to hear a mom say she can't wait for school to start so she can get rid of her kids.
Ours were with us 24/7 for the most part.
I'd do it all again in a nano second.


We are in a different life season now, our nest is empty and it's surely different, but we are enjoying it being just the two of us again, and it's great when our big guys drop in and stay for dinner, then go back to their own places.

I'm with you....LOVED being with my kids, at all ages, and had to work all the time, so them going back to school each year wasn't much to celebrate.

I don't have a husband, so when my birds left the nest I could literally hear all the clocks ticking, the house was so very quiet. It was NOT a good feeling. Moved in with Mom and things got better for us both, even though it's still quiet enough to hear the clocks ticking, at least we know we're not all alone in a big house.

 

[Nyboy]

I once stopped by to visit my dad. After a few minutes he told me the dog was upset I was there. By the 3rd time he said how upset the dog was I said maybe I should leave, I was very surprised when he said yes. To this day I wonder what the old man was doing that he wanted me out of the house.

 

[digitS']

He was going through his foreign currency collection.



It was under your seat cushion on the couch ...

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

@Beekissed some people just are not used to quiet. Mom has to have the radio on almost all the time, so whenever she goes out to visit friends or shop i like to leave it off and have it quiet. and then if she's gone long enough i can put on some music that she doesn't like and rattle the walls a little bit for a while.

 

[flowerbug]

He was going through his foreign currency collection.



It was under your seat cushion on the couch ...

Steve

that's more funny than what i was thinking... (wet fart)

 

[ducks4you]

@Beekissed some people just are not used to quiet.

I spend some days at home and some at our office in town. I talk to myself and my dog and the cats and the chickens and the horses. Not crazy, just thinking.
DD's are all moved out but we have dinners with 2 of them average 4/7 days a week. We raised them to be independent and intelligent so it's like visiting with friends. Family is really important, BUT you all have to love and respect one another. My mother, widow for 25 years, (still alive and bitter as she ever was) never understood this. After she took a fall (her love of hard liquor every night and her 3 pages of medicine made her black out) in 2016 and put herself in the ER, then the hospital, then a rehab (nursing home), then back to the ER, back to the hospital, back to a rehab place until they were going to kick her out, hence my drive to Chicago to get her home, and still she blamed me for putting her in the rehab facility. Btw, when the nursing home wants them to go they will often leave them in hall in a wheelchair. When I questioned the wording of her POA, she decided that my cousin should be her POA. She decided this without telling me that they had gotten together to decide this.
I tried to talk to her atty when she was in the rehab, put she had fired him when he wouldn't do what she wanted. Her financial advisor gave me the number of her brand new atty. Her new atty was really wet behind the ears and sounded uneasy dealing with DH (also atty.) We had a good laugh on that.
For YEARS my mother would visit and recount memories of when she was in charge of me, in charge of my DD's and generally, in charge, and never memories of the outings and visits over 30 years and too many criticisms of my DH and insinuation that she would have preferred MY death instead of my brother (10 years ago) and I had had enough. It could have been warm and fuzzy memories mixed with other recent warm and fuzzy memories...but it was never that way.
My DD's share memories and laugh about things, like when last week I thought I had defrosted the chili I froze for dinner, but it was, in fact, the Beans for the chili that I had frozen. That is what families do, share memories and laugh about foibles.
As far as I know my mother is still alive and is running through her platinum home care plan. I figure that the coroner will call me when she dies.
THAT is NOT how you treat your child, and I learned from her and I treasure my own children. Even though I have a not-so-great SIL--middle DD has a lot to do with it with a rebellious introduction--and we don't really know our grandson, we still make an effort to visit them, and give them many 2nd chances.
I try to think of how to make our relationship better and I believe it is inching closer to what it should be. Here is one example. I always buy a pair of really warm socks for everybody for Christmas. In 2016 my SIL told me that he didn't need any more socks. I could have not given him a pair. Instead I wrapped up 2 pairs for my daughter and told her she could keep them both, since he didn't want them. He surprised me by doing a 180 and told me that he would LOVE a pair and that he has sorry about what he had said the year before.
MY mother would have given him a lecture.
Still.........the house now stays clean when DH and I clean it, so we now have settled the argument about who was messing it up. =b

 

[journey11]

Dew! Wasn't she just a freshman? I don't know how on earth that is possible. At least she will be somewhat close to home.

Although I love an occasional span of absolute peace and quiet (and the ability to hear myself think), I really like having my kids around and the constant buzz of a busy, messy, happy house. That is what the outdoors are for, when mom needs a break! But I can still hear/see them from the window. Or sometimes it is I who need to slip out and "play" outside! Chore time is my favorite time of day.

My oldest is a 5th grader now. The youngest will turn 6 in March. I clearly remember with Ava that 6 was the last year of having a cuddly "baby". They're too cool for much of that after. Nothing I love more than having my babes tucked under my arm as we read a book on the couch.

 

[journey11]

I spend some days at home and some at our office in town. I talk to myself and my dog and the cats and the chickens and the horses. Not crazy, just thinking.
DD's are all moved out but we have dinners with 2 of them average 4/7 days a week. We raised them to be independent and intelligent so it's like visiting with friends. Family is really important, BUT you all have to love and respect one another. My mother, widow for 25 years, (still alive and bitter as she ever was) never understood this. After she took a fall (her love of hard liquor every night and her 3 pages of medicine made her black out) in 2016 and put herself in the ER, then the hospital, then a rehab (nursing home), then back to the ER, back to the hospital, back to a rehab place until they were going to kick her out, hence my drive to Chicago to get her home, and still she blamed me for putting her in the rehab facility. Btw, when the nursing home wants them to go they will often leave them in hall in a wheelchair. When I questioned the wording of her POA, she decided that my cousin should be her POA. She decided this without telling me that they had gotten together to decide this.
I tried to talk to her atty when she was in the rehab, put she had fired him when he wouldn't do what she wanted. Her financial advisor gave me the number of her brand new atty. Her new atty was really wet behind the ears and sounded uneasy dealing with DH (also atty.) We had a good laugh on that.
For YEARS my mother would visit and recount memories of when she was in charge of me, in charge of my DD's and generally, in charge, and never memories of the outings and visits over 30 years and too many criticisms of my DH and insinuation that she would have preferred MY death instead of my brother (10 years ago) and I had had enough. It could have been warm and fuzzy memories mixed with other recent warm and fuzzy memories...but it was never that way.
My DD's share memories and laugh about things, like when last week I thought I had defrosted the chili I froze for dinner, but it was, in fact, the Beans for the chili that I had frozen. That is what families do, share memories and laugh about foibles.
As far as I know my mother is still alive and is running through her platinum home care plan. I figure that the coroner will call me when she dies.
THAT is NOT how you treat your child, and I learned from her and I treasure my own children. Even though I have a not-so-great SIL--middle DD has a lot to do with it with a rebellious introduction--and we don't really know our grandson, we still make an effort to visit them, and give them many 2nd chances.
I try to think of how to make our relationship better and I believe it is inching closer to what it should be. Here is one example. I always buy a pair of really warm socks for everybody for Christmas. In 2016 my SIL told me that he didn't need any more socks. I could have not given him a pair. Instead I wrapped up 2 pairs for my daughter and told her she could keep them both, since he didn't want them. He surprised me by doing a 180 and told me that he would LOVE a pair and that he has sorry about what he had said the year before.
MY mother would have given him a lecture.
Still.........the house now stays clean when DH and I clean it, so we now have settled the argument about who was messing it up. =b

I'm sorry, Ducks. I've got a grandmother who is a lot like that. Some people are just crippled by bitterness, stuck in the past and there's nothing more you can do with them. Their problem is really with themselves, not with you. I made it my priority to gauge my own reactions with the goal of not having any regrets myself. It is still sad though, makes you feel cheated out of what you should have had in that relationship. It sounds like you have put that energy toward bettering your relationship with your own kids. There is a lot of healing in that.

 

[ducks4you]

Agreed.