Kids headed to College Fall 2012 Check-in

[suzannen]

Aww...Suzannen, that made me tear up. So very, very sweet. A moment to put in your mind's treasure box.

I know, right? Aren't we lucky that we've been blessed with these wonderful young women?

 

[Robinrs]

I've been following this thread also. My DD (my youngest) heads out in 2 weeks, so both of us have been a little emotional the last week or so. Like Buckalew, she has been the sweetest, easiest DD and we really are close. We were walking down the street yesterday and she took my hand and said "I know it will never quite be the same once I leave, but this won't change" as she squeezed my hand. We both teared up.

But, I'm happy for her new adventure as college was such a great experience for me & my DH. She'll be a 2 hour train ride away and Parents/Family weekend is at the end of September.

One question - her school has a convocation for all freshman students & their parents late in the afternoon on the day they move in, followed by a reception at the President's house and lawn. Did others attend anything like this? (My college was way too big and parents simply drove away right after unpacking).

Aww...Suzannen, that made me tear up. So very, very sweet. A moment to put in your mind's treasure box.

I know, right? Aren't we lucky that we've been blessed with these wonderful young women?

A true blessing...

My son told me that he doesn't want to leave me because I NEED HIM AROUND..

I reminded Mr Man that I was full darned grown when I had HIM and I'll be fine. He does NOT believe me.

The nicest thing EVER he told me last night. He said, "thanks Mom, for being so smart".



He told me he appreciated all the times I straightened him out and how much information I gave him about college. I remember being the first person in my entire family to go to college and how little help I got. I didn't want that to happen to him. This whole summer was dedicated to the differences between high school and college and how he has to step up to the plate. He told me he appreciated it.

Sometimes the small things, just MATTER!

 

[java]

change of plans- I am now going with to drop off ds. He really wanted me to come.

Now I just have to figure out how to get the other 3 on the bus to school that day. It's a 5 hour drive there and then another 5 back. All in one day.

 

[suzannen]

A true blessing...

My son told me that he doesn't want to leave me because I NEED HIM AROUND..

I reminded Mr Man that I was full darned grown when I had HIM and I'll be fine. He does NOT believe me.

The nicest thing EVER he told me last night. He said, "thanks Mom, for being so smart".



He told me he appreciated all the times I straightened him out and how much information I gave him about college. I remember being the first person in my entire family to go to college and how little help I got. I didn't want that to happen to him. This whole summer was dedicated to the differences between high school and college and how he has to step up to the plate. He told me he appreciated it.

Sometimes the small things, just MATTER!

Awwww, what a great and smart kid he sounds! I know you're proud and you will certainly get along without him fine AS WELL as miss him dearly!

 

[RitaE]

T- 8 days and counting.

Unless you know, I kill him first.

 

[Green Tea]

He's loving life! He is camping along the way - at predetermined destinations. Last night he was able to get the mountain bike out and ride a bit. He didn't even call last night - we texted a bit but he was trying to sleep. Good think I spoke to him tongiht. His "planned" route from the east coast to his school out west was to follow interstate 70 the whole way. HELLO! 70 ends in Utah and you still have a ways to go after that.

Which college is he heading for?

 

[mom2boys]

Which college is he heading for?

Boise State University - Go Broncos!

 

[Chelley00]

DS moved in Tuesday morning.

He's probably texted 100 times since I left that afternoon I'm so glad to have that quick way to communicate. He said today he walked campus with his schedule to find his classes and walked to Village Pantry to buy Advil. I know I bought and packed some but it disappeared!

He's also texted his sister a few times since he broke her arm the night before he left.

 

[stitch and co]

Boise State University - Go Broncos!

Leaving next Thursday to take DD up to Boise,s he is so excited and can't wait to attend a home football game on the blue turf.

We are in Denver and taking I-25 up to I-80 thru WY, it cuts off about two hours for us instead of going I-70. Took the I-80 route up to Boise for oreintation and did the I-70 route back so she could see both ways home just in case. Hope your DS has a safe trip.

 

[WDWBarb]

He's loving life! He is camping along the way - at predetermined destinations. Last night he was able to get the mountain bike out and ride a bit. He didn't even call last night - we texted a bit but he was trying to sleep. Good think I spoke to him tongiht. His "planned" route from the east coast to his school out west was to follow interstate 70 the whole way. HELLO! 70 ends in Utah and you still have a ways to go after that.

What an amazing young man!! I can't even imagine his level of maturity. Outstanding!! No way DD could do this on her own.

I've been following this thread also. My DD (my youngest) heads out in 2 weeks, so both of us have been a little emotional the last week or so. Like Buckalew, she has been the sweetest, easiest DD and we really are close. We were walking down the street yesterday and she took my hand and said "I know it will never quite be the same once I leave, but this won't change" as she squeezed my hand. We both teared up.

I've read this several times over the last few days on this thread and every time it makes me tear up. What a sweet young woman you've raised.

 

[suzannen]

I've read this several times over the last few days on this thread and every time it makes me tear up. What a sweet young woman you've raised.

Thank you. So, yesterday the two of us were watching the Food Network when what comes on but the cake challenge show featuring cakes inspired by Toy Story 3. We started talking about all of her favorite stuffed animals, toys and dolls. After promising that I would not banish her toys to the basement or attic, I asked her if she wanted to take one with her and, if so, which one. She said she wanted to think about it.

This morning she comes in and asks me if we could go to the Disney Store in Times Square next week when we’re going to see “Peter and the Starcatcher” on Broadway. I said, “sure, what do you want to buy?” She says that she’s decided she wants to buy a stuffed baby Dumbo to take to college because that was the first movie she ever saw, we’ve watched it SO many times over the years, and it was her first connection to Disney. Of course, the ONLY think that popped into my head was Dumbo's mother rocking him in “Baby Mine” and I started to cry again.

This is going to be a long week and a half!!

How is everyone else holding up who has just done the drop off?

 

[StephMK]

T- 8 days and counting.

Unless you know, I kill him first.

LOL, just think, that might help you miss him a little less! So will he make it to move in day or did you save a lot of tuition by killing him instead?

DS moved in Tuesday morning.

He's probably texted 100 times since I left that afternoon I'm so glad to have that quick way to communicate. He said today he walked campus with his schedule to find his classes and walked to Village Pantry to buy Advil. I know I bought and packed some but it disappeared!

He's also texted his sister a few times since he broke her arm the night before he left.

Aw, I'm so jealous, DD was barely in touch the first few days! Glad he is getting used to campus. How are you doing with him being gone? Aw, your poor DD, is it hurting less now?

Thank you. So, yesterday the two of us were watching the Food Network when what comes on but the cake challenge show featuring cakes inspired by Toy Story 3. We started talking about all of her favorite stuffed animals, toys and dolls. After promising that I would not banish her toys to the basement or attic, I asked her if she wanted to take one with her and, if so, which one. She said she wanted to think about it.

This morning she comes in and asks me if we could go to the Disney Store in Times Square next week when we’re going to see “Peter and the Starcatcher” on Broadway. I said, “sure, what do you want to buy?” She says that she’s decided she wants to buy a stuffed baby Dumbo to take to college because that was the first movie she ever saw, we’ve watched it SO many times over the years, and it was her first connection to Disney. Of course, the ONLY think that popped into my head was Dumbo's mother rocking him in “Baby Mine” and I started to cry again.

This is going to be a long week and a half!!

How is everyone else holding up who has just done the drop off?

OMG, I would have been crying too! That's so sweet, she sounds like a great girl.


Well, the day after I dropped her off was the hardest. I just missed knowing she wasn't around and we really hadn't heard from her at all. She was gone so much senior year (out & about w/friends) so I am used to her not being home, just harder not knowing how she is.

I had a feeling she was happy because her few short texts had good comments w/exclamation points. I figured I'd hear from her when it was bad news. Well, yesterday, she called, bawling. That was so incredibly hard. She is rushing and did not get an invite to a couple she felt really good about. She is pretty shy at first & not assertive so social things are not easy. She's very social & loves going out doing stuff but until people know her, it's tough.

Plus her roomies all know so many girls there already, she feels a little awkward with them. She did say she was meeting a lot of people so I hope she finds her way soon. She sounds fine but I know it's a tough transition after having such a close groups of friends in HS. I think once she finds something to belong to, she'll be good. She was in show choir in HS and that was such a tight knit bunch of friends.

I'm dying to shovel out the rest of her room (her idea of cleaning & mine are apparently different) and paint but I feel like I need to wait til she comes home to visit at least once first.

How is everyone else doing w/the kids gone?

 

[SC Minnie]

DD leaves Sunday. She has brought everything down to the dining room to make it easier load. She printed out pictures for some of her frames- on our cruise last summer I took a matte for a frame that holds 3 pictures and had the characters sign it. That's the one she wants to take. The first picture she put in it was of the 3 of us. She won't admit it but I think she is really going to miss us (and we'll miss her too ). She has been deep cleaning her room and bathroom this week. She has a pile of stuff from her room for our church's annual yard sale next weekend.

I think its going to be easier for her and us since we'll see her every 2 weeks for the first 2 months. That's just how everything has worked out.

 

[Robinrs]

We moved my great niece in yesterday. She's moving into the same school my son is going to and she is THRILLED about it, him...not so much.

I sat outside in the parking lot trying to find what room she was in and got an earful and eyeful of some of the funniest things on "Move In Day"

One man on the phone hollering about financial aid

Two women coming out crying like they left a funeral instead of their kid at college.

A man carrying out the box of a 40" TV (the rooms are TINY, where did it go?)

A boy rolling in about 100 rolls of toilet paper a la Sams Club.

Several girls dressed like they were going to a club instead of a dorm

Multi generations moving in one kid (including US)

Happy kids and sad parents , Sad kids and Happy parents...

It was better than a sitcom!!

 

[JBurke]

Dropped by DD off yesterday.
I kept it together well until the parting goodbyes.

Traffic was horrible, so it took 45 longers to get there (and home). Ten minutes away from the school it decided to DOWNPOUR. Could barely see the car ahead of us. Once we got to college, we had to wait in line of hundreds of other cars for an hour to get to the unloading area. Guess that was okay since it gave the rain a chance to go away.

They supposedly had kids acting as "Curb Birds" to help unload the car, but no one was around to help us. The ones I were able to grab had the answers to none of my questions. It made things quite unnecessarily hectic for us and many other parents. No one knew what to do or where to do.
Finally figured it out though.

Once we got in her room, the floor was wet. We figured it was from our wet feet or boxes from the rain, but after wiping the floor down several times with papertowel we noticed it kept being wet. My DH discovered the floor air conditioner unit was leaking and had been leaking for some time because most of the floor tiles were peeling off the ground and everytime we stepped on one it was releasing water. Took a while to get a hold of maintenance, but they fixed the air conditioner and promised to have someone fix the floor soon (they better!). In the meantime we placed some cardboard on the floor so my daughter wouldnt hurt her feet on the buckled floor.

They were going to have a floor meeting at 6:30 and then her roommate asked he to go explore the campus after that, so we thought it was best to leave then. That is when I lost it. I didnt want to stop hugging her goodbye. Pretty much cried the first hour of our 2.5 hour trip home.

The school has activities and meetings planned the rest of the weekend. I have to find a way to get myself to stop worrying though. I keep thinking "has she made some friends", "does she have someone to eat breakfast with"...
She is kind of shy and I worry about her not finding a good group of friends.
Guess a mom's worries are never over.

 

[WDWBarb]

DD is coming home tonight!! She'll get in late after work and leave early in the morning but I will take every second I can get!! I made a trip to Trader Joe's for all the stuff she loves. Those frozen Caribbean Fruit Floes won't fit in her dorm freezer so I'm trying to tempt her to visit home more often. . Three hours and she's home!

 

[Chelley00]

Aw, I'm so jealous, DD was barely in touch the first few days! Glad he is getting used to campus. How are you doing with him being gone? Aw, your poor DD, is it hurting less now?

I think my DS will be the opposite of your DD. Once he gets settled in and classes start, we probably won't hear from him as much. He's not a big "social gathering" type person so he's not going to a bunch of the Welcome Week things, so he has a lot of time on his hands right now.

I sat outside in the parking lot trying to find what room she was in and got an earful and eyeful of some of the funniest things on "Move In Day"

That was one of my favorite parts of moving in DS. People watching! I stayed in his room, his girlfriend "babysat" his pile of stuff outside the dorm and DS and his dad carried stuff up, so I had time to watch out his window in between unpacking boxes.

So many parents sobbing. Not some tears, but shoulder heaving sobs.

Huge amounts of furniture, even bigger TVs (DS has a huge TV but only brought it because he's in a single and his room is pretty large)

Parents losing their patience because of traffic and their kids stopping to talk to others and not helping. I saw so many fathers yelling at their kids.

It started sprinkling and everyone was scattering, running to get appliances under something, and then it stopped just as fast as it started.

One mom carrying in 3 HUGE cases of Ruffles potato chips.

One girl carrying in this pile of clothes on hangers that had to weigh 100 lbs. It was probably more clothes than I own. Her dad was behind her, carrying a pile just as big.

There was a girl in the dorm next to DS's that was carrying moving boxes wearing 4" heels and a mini skirt 10 sizes too small, hair perfectly done and tons of makeup on. All the girls walking past her, wearing their shorts and tshirts and hair in ponytails, would turn and check her out with a totally confused look on their faces.

 

[zurgswife]

T-9 days for us and no packing completed yet...AHHHHH!!.. I work overnight the next two nights then have a bday party for my mom on Sunday (with no sleep).....But Monday and Tuesday I'm going to force him to pack!!!!!

He has heard from his roommate so that is good.

 

[ckay87]

He's leaving in the morning. I hear him upstairs rolling up posters.... this is serious.

It's ironic...he's actually been out of high school for a year (finally made a decision about education), so I haven't been in the doting mother role for a while. It's really the past few days, getting ready for this, that I've been more of a momma than I've been in a long time.

 

[Southernmiss]

Yesterday DS and I left early to make his last Walmart run and shop for a couple of dress shirts and ties and a pair of khakis. We were home by 12:30, I asked DS all day do you need help packing. His reply, "I'll get to it." Well at 8 p.m. we were still finishing his laundry and I ran out and got more storage totes from Kmart and pushed him to finish packing. I think it hit him yesterday that he was leaving and he was dragging his feet. He finished packing at 10:30 p.m. and loaded the van this morning.

Toy Story 3s "Strange things are happening to me" song and movie clips ran through my head all night.

So we moved DS in today. He's at school an hour away and I cried halfway there. It started when I walked DD to school this morning just before we left, and saw a teacher whose son is a friend of my sons and she moved him into his school last week. She asked when my DS moves in and I said "We're leaving now"--and the waterworks started. I cried halfway to his school an hour away.

We arrived and it was well organized. The parents unloaded the kids and their stuff and left them on the curb while the parents parked the auto. I actually found this funny as it was like "kicking our kids to the cub" literally. At the curb, there was an older student waiting to help haul stuff to the rooms. DS and I waited with his stuff for DH to park the van and chatted with DSs moving assistant, but the clouds were quickly coming closer. I suggested they get a move on with the first armfuls and I wait for DH.

When DH and I got to the dorm building, DS and the other kids were waiting in lines to check in. The assistants and parents were hauling stuff to the rooms and leaving it outside the rooms. DH and the assitant managed to get all but 1 load to the building before the rain. We had forgotten our hand truck--that would have been sooo helpful.

At DSs room, he arrived just before his roommate and his parents. DSs room is very nice with a private bath for he and his roommate. DS is fortunate to be in the newest set of dorms (a privilege given first to the honors students and then filled in by other students--not sure how others get selected for the dorms). It took us a lot longer to unpack DS than his roommate and his family. I think DS brought a lot more stuff.

By the time DS was settled in, my brother and my niece arrived to move her into her dorm (she's in another building across campus). We went over to help them and then all had a nice lunch together.

My brother dropped us back off near DSs dorm and we went in to pick up a few things we were bringing home. DSs roommate and one of his friends arrived back and the kids were talking and getting to know each other so we ducked out.

As we were driving away. DH said "I'm proud of you you didn't cry." And that's when I teared up. But just for a bit.

DH talked to DS about 4 hours after we left and DS said he was bored, but talking with other kids he ran into that he knows from other places.

Tomorrow the freshmen organized activities start so that will be good.

At home, DS #2 now has to do dishes tonight and take out the trash--those were older DSs jobs. So we'll all have to adjust. Although DS#2, who just got his learner's permit this week, just said, "Did DS#1 leave his car keys?" I said, "yes." DS#2 in a devious voice "Really" LOL