Thursday Thirteen #42. It’s Graduation!

Do any of y’all have graduates this year? We have one about to graduate (Yippee!) and he is the last of the bunch. That means that the last few weeks have been busy, and it isn’t going to slow down soon. For Thursday Thirteen, I guess this is thirteen observations.

1. I love this quote :

Children Are Like Kites

By: Erma Bombeck
You spend years trying to get them off the ground.
You run with them until you are both breathless. They crash … they hit the roof … you patch, comfort and assure them that someday they will fly.
Finally, they are airborne.
They need more string, and you keep letting it out.
They tug, and with each twist of the twine, there is sadness that goes with joy.
The kite becomes more distant, and you know it won’t be long before that beautiful creature will snap the lifeline that binds you together and will soar as meant to soar … free and alone.

Only then do you know that you have done your job.

Makes you get all teary-eyed, doesn’t it? Forget about it!

2. Getting ready for graduation has been “interesting.” I get told information on a “need to know” basis. Usually, it’s considered that I don’t “need to know.” The child is my stepson, and this wicked stepmother doesn’t handle all the arrangements. Those are left to his Daddy, and sometimes his Momma. That makes it frustrating for my Type A personality. I did inquire about graduation invitations, since I hadn’t seen any (and my sister had asked…because she was willing to send him money for a graduation gift, even though she hardly knows him). Seems no one ordered any! My husband quickly printed out some for him. We didn’t have many people to send them to, but there were a few. I can’t believe a kid would miss a legitimate chance to ask for a present!

3. My oldest stepson is flying in from Portland, Oregon for the festivities. Yikes! That meant I needed a guest room, and my guest room has been headquarters for Share A Square. It was chock full of afghans! So, I’ve been spending several days excavating. These boxes had to get moved to the garage.

4. The summer will be a busy one. He spends July with his mother, so we only have June and a few days in August to get the things he will need for college life. I can’t even remember what those things are because it has been so long since I had to deal with this situation. I guess I’ll have to put on my thinking cap. What does he need?

5. Do any of y’all remember the commercial several years back that showed a kid driving away to college with his parents tearfully waving “Bye! Bye!” at the door? As soon as the car was around the corner, the parents dashed to his room and started gleefully re-decorating. Well, I’m not going to do that. I’ll probably wait a week.

6. The boy will be matriculating at the University of Texas at Dallas. Although that isn’t too far from Denton, he will be living on campus because the traffic between here and there is horrendous. He will be taking his bed, so it is going to free the room to be a library. I always wanted a library…but that room isn’t big enough to hold all of our books!

7. He can move into the dorm on August 16th, which is 72 days away (but who is counting?).

8. Lest you think I am cold-hearted, the UTD Counseling Center has a Resource for parents with tips about “making the adjustment to your child’s graduation.” It assured me that I am not alone: “It is normal, too, to look forward to the relative peace and quiet of having your active older adolescent out of the house and having the place to yourself…” Whew. I feel better.

9. You see, my husband and I have only been married five years, and we’ve never been alone! An empty nest doesn’t frighten me (my children are long grown and gone). But, being alone with my husband fills me with trepidation. I mean, heck, what are we going to do? My husband assures me with a leer on his face that we will “think of something.” Hmmm.

10. I promise that there are things that I will not miss about raising a teenager! The worry when they are out late, the “eye roll” (you know the look I mean), the constant noise, the filthy room, I’m told not to mention what the toilet looks like because it would be “indelicate”…

11. What will I miss?
Umm….
Help me out here….

I’m kidding! He is a good boy. Everyone says so. Total strangers come up to us to tell us what an interesting and polite young man he is. We always have to ask if they mean our son. Seriously, though, that’s how you know you have a good kid! When other grownups think you have a fine kid, you probably do. Unfortunately, teenagers rarely exhibit those stellar traits in their own homes.

12. Maybe when he moves out he will make the effort to try to impress us with his loquacious personality? Right now, I rarely hear more than a one word sentence. Usually that word is an unintelligible “grunt” of some kind.

13. Be that as it may, we are going to miss the little toot. I just hope the “kite” doesn’t get his string all tangled or snagged!

There you have it. Thanks for visiting. If you leave a comment, you will be automatically linked with your latest post. After that, you can go visit some other Thursday Thirteen participants and meet some nice people. Not everyone is a wicked stepmother!

Other posts you might enjoy:

1. Thursday Thirteen—The Saga of the Hotel from Hell
2. Thursday Thirteen #6 I Should Have Known Better
3. Thursday Thirteen #9—A Ghost Hunt
4. Thursday Thirteen #45. My New “Baby!”
5. Thursday Thirteen #16—I’ll Never Do It Again

Tagged as: advice, Erma Bombeck, graduate, life lesson, raising a teenager, Thursday Thirteen