Drawing to an end

 It seems like this is the right time to wrap up this blog. So I'll end this with a note directly to the kids.

Reed and Amy,

We called our trivia team "Empty Nesters"
and we won third place!

Somehow we've arrived at the time when you are both officially adults, off at college and beginning to make your way through the world on your own. 

It's a tough thing to adjust to, this whole "empty nest". 

We spent 21+ years knowing where you were at all times (I'm including pregnancy, where I certainly knew where you were, since I carried you around in my body!), and generally how you were doing and what was going on in your life. Now we can only watch your whereabouts on our phones (thank goodness for technology!) and check in periodically with the hopes that we're not being annoying, as you attend classes, hang out with friends, and learn how to be (mostly) totally responsible for yourselves. 

We don't have any doubts about your ability to manage that, so in a sense it should be easy. But it's not. We miss you every day, and the house is so quiet.

It struck me the other day how time goes along and we find ourselves playing the roles our parents played. Having a scheduled weekly phone call to catch up, like Tod and his Dad did for so many Sunday mornings, and before that his Mom. Grandparents waiting and hoping for a phone call or a visit. I think no matter how often you call or visit, your parents and grandparents wish it were more. I see a glimpse of our future in these thoughts, and wonder where life will bring you both and how often we will get to talk with and see you in your big, bright futures. I guess I'm a little melancholy.

I started this blog with the idea that one day I'd have it printed out for you, so that's what I'll be working on next. I am not sure if either of you will ever really read it all, but I hope you will, and I hope you will know how much we love you and how important you are to us. Being your parents is a joy.

We love you so much and are so proud of both of you. 

XOXO,

Mom & Dad

She's doing great!

First day of class!

Amy seems to have settled into college life beautifully! 

She ended up with a MWF 8 a.m. microeconomics class, which isn't ideal, but she's rolled with it. She has had a little bit of homework in that class, and some drawing homework in another, but mostly she's just having a whole lot of free time, which is a new feeling for her.

She has also gone on a tubing outing as well as a paddleboarding outing, which I'm so happy about. She did a few of the other initial social activities too. She's gotten to know the other first year TDPs (that's Theatre Design & Production majors) and made a couple of shopping outings. 

Her roommate Erica has gone home all three weekends so far, so she's even had the room to herself a bit. They don't seem to really be interacting with their suite mates much but I guess that's okay?

Amy has tickets to a concert on Sunday night in D.C. so she's going to come home Saturday for that, and head back to school early Monday morning. We are waiting for her to say she wants to bring her car back, which will be fine. 

So happy that it's going so well!

Two kids in college

Our NYC trip didn't have the greatest timing, as it bumped up so close to when Reed was to leave for JMU. But we made the most of the last day before he headed out. Sunday evening we went to an early dinner together at Foster's Grill. Later, Reed and I picked up dessert from Rita's Italian Ice & Frozen Custard and brought it home, where we played several games of Uno. It was a really nice evening together. Then Monday morning we all got breakfast at First Watch before loading up our car and Reed's. We probably could have actually fit all Reed's stuff into his car, if we'd taken his desk chair apart, but he seemed to want us to go with him so we were happy to do that. Plus it gave us the chance to check out his new apartment, say hello to Will and meet their new roommate, Ben. 

It's still not easy, even on the third time doing it, to drive away and leave him at college. But he is happy there and doing awesome, so it's all good! We are proud of how hard he's worked at school and excited for him to have another terrific year at JMU.

Two days later it was time to bring Amy to Shenandoah University. The packing experience with Amy was quite different than it was with Reed in his freshman year. And it sure seemed to me that Amy had more stuff than would possibly fit in her room, but it all worked out fine. We hit the Starbucks on our way out for breakfast and then headed west to Winchester for an early move-in time. It was all very well organized, with many football team members on hand to swarm our car and carry everything in for us...we didn't have to lift a hand (this is only done for freshman...next year we'll be the ones lugging stuff in!). Then it took a couple of hours to get things unpacked and do some decorating. Amazingly, the only things we neglected to bring were batteries for her hanging lights and a door stop. We went to lunch (Sonic FTW!) then to the grocery store for a few food items, then back to campus.

All moved in!

There was a convocation event in the late afternoon which was a very warm welcome for all the incoming students. "Shenandoah" means "daughter of the stars," and each student was able to walk across the stage and get a star keychain from the University President, Tracy Fitzsimmons. We were glad we attended this event.

Then, somehow, it was time for us to leave our youngest child at college. I think it's safe to say it was hard for all of us, even as ready as Amy is. So far she has attended a bunch of the welcome week activities, and even won a prize at late nigh bingo! Classes start on Monday and then the real work begins. I'm nervous and excited for her, but I know she will be great. 

It seems like just ten minutes ago that we were sending these little people off to kindergarten and second grade. And now they're both in college. I miss them already. 

Where did these little people go?

 

We ❤️ New York! (well, we ❤️ shows)

Several months ago I heard that comedians Seth Meyers and John Oliver were doing a show together in NYC. I thought that was the perfect excuse to plan a trip. Reed didn't want to go along, and this time we decided we should respect his wishes, even though it really would have been wonderful to have him there. He stayed home to work and take care of the pets. 

We took the bus up (because we're classy like that) on Thursday morning. We found a nice spot near the bus dropoff for lunch and then headed to our hotel room for some rest. That night was the comedy show, and we'd gotten Amy a ticket to see "& Juliet," which she'd really wanted to see for some time. Tod and I dropped her off at her show and headed to ours. She navigated the couple of blocks back to the hotel after her show on her own (it made me a bit nervous!). 

Friday we checked out the Museum of Art and Design, which had a special Taylor Swift exhibit. That part wasn't extensive but it was still cool and because of it we were at a museum we otherwise wouldn't have visited. We checked out the rest of the place and learned about paper clothes that were made in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as well as lots of other cool and beautiful things. Then we returned to the main branch of the NY library, where we'd visited the previous year. On that trip we'd overbooked ourselves and had to leave the library sooner than Amy had wanted to, so she wanted to finish her visit. 

We hadn't planned anything for Saturday during the day, and I saw an ad for "Broadway Roulette" where you say when you want to go to a show, they give you a list of 15-20 shows and you can eliminate 4 of them, then it will pick a show for you with discounted tickets. We figured why not, let's give it a spin (see what I did there??). They don't notify you until a few hours before the show, so we waited to find out what we'd be seeing. 

Friday evening we saw "Shucked," a musical comedy that had gotten some Tony awards. While we did laugh a bunch, and the singing was off the charts amazing, we had some issues with the show. It doesn't portray small town people in a positive light, which felt kind of like city folks punching down. That's kind of the whole point of the show but it was kind of off-putting. Plus there's one character who's coded as gay and they make several jokes I would call homophobic. So strange that those are the two issues we saw with it. But I think we enjoyed ourselves well enough.

Saturday morning we got the word that we'd be seeing "Some Like it Hot". Amy and I were both apprehensive because the movie it's based on is pretty transphobic and Tod was ambivalent, not knowing anything about it. But we ended up being very happily surprised. They reworked the story to remove the transphobia, the singing and dancing was amazing and it was a fun show. We all agreed that Broadway Roulette was a fun way to go.

Saturday evening we saw "The Cottage," which is a comedic play. We had a lot of laughs and I think we'd all give it a thumbs up but it wouldn't be something we'd necessarily tell people to go see. It starred Eric McCormick, who played Will on the "Will & Grace" television show. 

In between all of this we hit some stores, had some really good meals and some yummy desserts. We have gotten a lot better at NYC – we didn't over schedule ourselves and left room for some spontaneity. 

Sunday morning we got breakfast and boarded the bus home! Terrific trip, and really nice for Tod and I to get this dedicated together time with Amy before she left for school.

Hello Rosie!

Such a pretty girl!

This little cutie joined our family on August 3. She came from FOHA, which is where we also got Eddie. They named her Rose, because though she was not more than a baby herself, she gave birth to kittens under a rose bush in Shenandoah County. She came to FOHA with her babies, who all got adopted before her.

When I went to visit the cattery in search of a new kitty, she was in a room all by herself. They said she "shut down" when they tried to have her in "gen pop" (my words, not theirs!) with the other cats. So she had her own area, which was right next to where the kittens were. I went in and sat down, with the hopes that she'd come out from hiding behind the couch to get some pets, and sure enough she did! She was still skittish, but she came out. The FOHA worker was surprised that she came out for me (Tod says she played me like a fiddle). I'd originally been thinking of getting two cats, or a cat and a kitten. But Rose was my favorite of the cats, and it didn't seem she wanted a cat roommate just yet, so we decided to just get her and then maybe add another cat later (her foster mom thinks she'd do best if a kitten was the new friend, so we will keep that in mind). 

We are not great at naming pets, but we did try on several names for size – Olive, Betty, Dolly. Reed's suggestion of 'iPhone' was soundly rejected, though. In the end, we decided that Rosie suited her and also honored her difficult life before she came to us. 

Trouble!!

It is wonderful to have a cat again. We kept her in the office for the first few days, and she didn't really hide in there much at all, she would come out to get pets pretty easily. And after a couple days she was very interested in what was going on outside the office, particularly with regard to Shelby. Plus, while Diesel stayed with us recently, he dug up carpet by the door, and she was doing that too (not that our carpet's not totally ruined already, but still). So we probably let her out too early. Then it became a game of figuring out where she was hiding. Mostly under our bed at first. Then in the storage area in the basement. Then I couldn't find her, and was sure she had to be in the storage area somewhere. Well, it never occurred to me to look UP, but that's where she was – up in the rafters (is that what they're called in a basement??). Then she was MIA for an overnight and I started to get worried that with the construction we've had that there was some way she managed to escape. The search focused again on the storage area. Tod was the one to spot her. It's tough to explain, but she'd gone inside the bulkhead (i.e. near the ceiling) in between the wall and the duct work, and she'd gone clear across the house, probably 20 feet back, and into an area that seemed like indeed it might have led to the outside if she tried hard. We were able to lure her to a visible location, but she didn't come down. We made a couple of paths where she could more easily jump down and I sat nearby and talked to her in the hopes that she'd come down. No luck. I decided I'd sit somewhere nearby but not visible to her. Sure enough it wasn't long before she was meowing, and we hadn't heard a peep out of her up until then. She seemed to be saying she didn't know how to get down. I tried to encourage her to use the paths we made or try to figure out how to reverse how she got there in the first place but it wasn't working. So when she came near enough, I grabbed her and had a heck of a time keeping her from slipping away again (there may have been some tail grabbing). She scratched me up pretty good but I managed to get her out of there. Needless to say she's not allowed in the storage area any longer.

It's a bummer that our never-ending construction meant that we weren't able to get a new cat until it was close to time for the kids to leave for college. She has slowly been becoming more brave about being out and about, but has spent a lot of time under our bed. Amy made a big effort to gain her confidence, and made a lot of progress. She is still trying to learn what all the sounds in our house are, so she knows she's safe. Shelby is still a bit too excited about her. But I think it won't be long before she's hanging out with us all the time and Shelby is her pal. Maybe one day she'll even be a lap cat. Right now she LOVES pets and will sometimes sit near you but not on you. We're all still getting to know each other, and it is wonderful. 

Road trip!

Many months ago, Amy and her friends started planning for a road trip to Philadelphia for a music festival. It was the Bittersweet Daze with mxmtoon, Ricky Montgomery, grentperez and Cavetown at the Skyline Stage at the Mann on August 4. They bought concert tickets, booked an AirBnB,  canceled the Air BnB in favor of a hotel room, and made their travel plans. Molly was the driver and planner for which rest stops they would stop at, Amy was the navigator, and Yohannes held down the back seat.

We were worried about this trip, as driving to Philly is kinda scary even for longtime drivers. But we reminded ourselves that in very short order, these same kids will be at college doing absolutely whatever they want all the time. Plus they're all adults. So we signed off on the trip and hoped for the best.

Made it to their hotel room.

Well they seem to have had a great time, with absolutely zero problems. They made it to their hotel, then over to the venue for the 5+ hour general admission, all-standing concert. They made it back to their room, found a great breakfast spot for the next morning, visited the Franklin Institute (science museum), then headed back home. 

I hope they made lifelong memories of their very first adult adventure. 

Starting to get really real

It's been a hot couple of weeks, but the last couple of mornings have been unusually cool. These kinds of mornings are always a more potent reminder of the coming change of seasons (life and weather) than the calendar. 

Each back to school time is a bit sad for me, and this one will be the saddest of all. Both kids will be off at school. Reed will be at his junior year of college, which means next summer may be the last one that he lives with us. And if Amy gets involved in Shenandoah's summer program, she may not be home in the summers either.

Just because it's how it's supposed to go, and is what we've been working toward since these people came into the world, that doesn't mean it feels right or easy. It's not that I worry for how the kids will do – they will be awesome – it's the weirdness of spending 18+ years knowing where your child is at all times, and how they're doing, and now just dropping them off somewhere on their own. 

But we will all be okay. The transition may be bumpy, but I think it will make our remaining time together even more valuable.