Boston - I wasn’t wrong about their leaving. My husband kept telling me I was. That it wasn’t the end of the world when first one child, then another, and then the last packed their bags and left for college. But it was the end of something. “Can you pick me up, Mom?’’ “What’s for dinner?’’ “What do you think?’’ I was the sun and they were the planets. And there was life on those planets, whirling, nonstop plans and parties and friends coming and going, and ideas and dreams and the phone ringing and doors slamming.And I got to beam down on them. To watch. To glow. And then they were gone, one after the other. “They’ll be back,’’ my husband said. And he was right. They came back. But he was wrong, too, because they came back for intervals, not for always, not planets anymore, making their predictable orbits, but unpredictable, like shooting stars. Always is what you miss. Always knowing where they are. At school. At play practice. At a ballgame. At a friend’s. Always looking at the clock midday and anticipating the door opening, the sigh, the smile, the laugh, the shrug. “How was school?’’ answered for years in too much detail. “And then he said … and then I said to him… .’’ Then hardly answered at all... “I don’t know what I’m going to do without them,’’ she has said every day for months. And I have said nothing, because, really, what is there to say?
Hey Lady- Take a vacation or something. Sleep in instead of getting up to pack brown bag lunches, make selfish plans for just you and your husband, but for the love of god stop complaining. "Oh poor me, I've got so much free time as a stay at home mom with no kids left living at home." Come on lady, that's the dream. I spent an hour and a half Sunday night trying to think of ways I could make a living doing just that, just sitting around the house, eating leftover pizza and calzones, watching tv, surfing the net, prepare the occasional dinner and clean up once a week or so. I'd be content as a pig in shit. You know the first thing I would do? Buy two cast iron bathtubs and slap them down in the backyard Cialis style.
Now granted I'm not a parent, but even I know the goal from the minute child number one is brought home and messes up his parent's sleeping schedule, is to get that kid to a point where he can live outside of the house. I mean that's it. All that nostalgia after the fact that they're gone is just that, nostalgia. Sure you'll miss them, they're your kid. But think of the diapers, the sleepless nights, the calls from school, the yelling between siblings, having to cook every day, all the laundry, rides to school, rides to sports, rides to friends...it's like bringing up an complete invalid for the first 15-16 years. Why wouldn't you want that out of your house? I'd throw myself a "My Kids Are All Out of the House Party!" The second they backed out of the driveway. Other empty-nesters only. Get back to being yourselves, laugh at the same jokes you used to without saying things like earmuffs, have a couple of more drinks than you'd usually allow, less you wake up with a terrific hangover and a kid that can't figure out how to make a bowl of cereal for himself, and watch the R-rated moves that you missed out on for the last 20 years.
