Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for October 03, 2012

she doesn’t seem that happy…

My mother had 9 kids and always said " I can’t wait for a quite house!!" Then cried each time one of us moved out!!

I got one who is moving out to Texas tomorrow

Where’s Doc when you need him?

Me happy. You dum dum. ( Come on, kids! Time for a little Bungle In the Jungle!)

Arlo, go for the tried and true. Draw her a nice soothing bubble bath. ( Then, out comes the trusty leaf blower… bubbles all over the place!)

Daughter at college 2 months now.. Wife and I still having a hard time adjusting… Doing a head count is the worst. :_(

I’ll be so sad when they start leaving, my oldest will move into a dorm next fall even though he’s staying in town. He wants the “full student experience”.

I alternate between WI and FL, trying to help take care of four grandkids and forklift out the place (in my desultory fashion) up here, and spending some time with my husband down there.

I like having them out of the house. I can walk across the house in my undies to get fresh coffee, I don’t have to close my bedroom door, I don’t have to wait for them to call cause they need a ride home from (fill in the blank). It was time to let the little birdies spread their own wings.

Janis is either sending a mixed message or using a npc imitation of Native Americans.

Where is Ludwig in all this?

My parents solved that problem. They punched out before either my kid brother or I were ready to move out on our own. Dad died first; Mom died just short of one year later. Both were major surprises; no hint of any problems (at least, not the problems that took them).

We both cried all the way home (Michigan to Maine, 3-day trip) when we dropped our only child off at college….but you know, when we got back to a clean quiet house, where food stayed in the refrigerator and didn’t melt away, and we could listen to our music and our friends…it was kinda nice. And when it began to get boring-Presto! He was home for a three month work rotation. And we did that for the entire 5 years of his college experience…

It made the process of him eventually moving out seem natural and pleasant.

Can’t we get back to Ludvig?

It is one thing when they come and go during their college years. Entirely different when marriage comes into the picture. Our son married in June, still lives in the area. You know this is a very different place in all of your lives because there is a person from a different family with different expectations and traditions that you are now “joined with for life”. Fortunately, we love the addition and having been through (and still dealing with conflicts) we give them the space our parents never even seemed to think of giving us.