Getting Ready for Graduate School

Oldest child leaves for Grad. School on Wednesday.  His last day of work at his old job, at his undergraduate institution was Friday.  We are frantically attempting to get him together.  He's going to be further away from home now- 5 hours instead of 1 - so there will be no same day runs from us on our way into or out of work to drop stuff by. 

Yesterday, I did the unthinkable. I forced him to clean his room.  He and his brother share a room, and neither of them are great housekeepers, and I've tried to let them have their own space.  However, I fully realize that he's never really going to live at home again full time, and I want him to clean up his space so it will be clean when he does come home.

After 4 hours, we had cleaned out under his bed.  Let me be specific here:  He has a loft bed, so the space under his bed is significant, and it is cluttered.  We found trash.  Good Lord, did we find trash.  We found stuff from high school - old papers, notes from friends, and whatnot.  We even found a one gallon bottle of water that had been put under there when he moved back home for the summer.  The bottle had broken, water had seeped into the carpet, and there was mold and mildew everywhere.  I don't understand where or how all of this stuff got there, because he and I do clean out his room annually before he goes back to school.  I think it just procreates - like bunnies.

We've got him partly packed.  He wanted to put that off until Wednesday morning - right before we leave.  No, no, no, no, no!  We wouldn't get out of here until after noon, and we have a 5 hour drive staring at us, and the rental office closes at 4.  I made him start packing stuff up last night.  We've got a huge pile in the living room, but at least the pile is in one place. 

That's the funny part- I feel a little like a hoarder.  Middle child has his boxes and stuff piled in the hallway.  Daughter has her stuff piled in the kitchen - and the dining room.  Oldest child has his in the living room, and I am winding way my through stacks and stacks of boxes, crates, and bags every single time I try to move anywhere. 

I am really going to miss him when he goes.  In my heart, I know that from now on, he'll just be visiting us.  He's going to be working on his PhD, in a different state, and I know he's going to have great adventures, meet wonderful people, and do fantastic things.  I'm terribly excited for him, and for all of the possibilities laid out before him.  (I'm a little envious, actually.)

But I am going to miss him.  He's my first baby.  I know, he's not a baby anymore, but he is my first child, and he will truly be flying out on his own from now on.  I'll always have his back - but I'm going to have it from much further away now.

This is going to be a very weird fall.  All 3 of the kids, out of the house. 

Update on My Mom

 A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that my Mom was having issues with her eyes.  She has blood pooling behind her retina.  You can read the original post here:

http://mini-van-mom.blogspot.com/2013/07/moms-eyes.html

So, in the past couple of weeks, things have moved along very quickly.

She has bought a house down the street from my sister.  She has lived in her current house for 35 years.  The house is in an ideal location, as it is an hour away from each of us.  This has made it a wonderful destination for family gatherings over the years.

But now, she's moving down the street from my sister.  It's well over 2 hours from here, down Highway 95, around Washington DC, and through the hideous Northern Virginia traffic, and then down another hour south.  Life, it is a changin'.

She is getting her current house ready to sell.  Yesterday, we went down to her house and spent one of the most hellacious days I've had in quite some time.

Middle child hasn't been home for most of the summer.  The last time he saw Grammy was in May, just before his graduation.

Now that he's home, and this is his break between working at camp and going back to school, we made plans to go down to her house for the day.  We were going to take Mom out to lunch, run loads of stuff to Goodwill, and let middle child have some quality time with Grammy.

I was in for a rude awakening.  We got to Mom's house just before noon, and my sister had decided to come over for the day.  She was loading up stuff to take to Goodwill.  She had already taken the chairs that were supposed to be mine - given to the family by my Grandmother on my Dad's side 30 years ago.  They're gone.  So are my Fisher Price toys that I specifically asked her to save out for me the last time we talked.  So were the handmade inlaid wood pictures my Dad had made that I had asked her to save.  So was the shotgun my great-great grandfather carried when he fought in the Civil War.  By the time I got to Goodwill, they were already gone.  I would be okay if they had gone to my sister's house, but no, they went to Goodwill.  Family heirlooms, given away to strangers in a fit of whatever it is.

But still, this isn't about me, it's about my Mom.  We need to do what is best for her.

We pulled in, and she immediately put the kids to work loading stuff into her car.

Then, she pulled out to go run errands, and told us she'd be right back.

I told Mom that we should head out and get lunch, or head out to a restaurant and then text my sister, let her know where we were, and have her meet us there.  No go.  Mom refused to budge until my sister got back.

My sister pulls into the driveway behind me, blocking me in, brings in a rotisserie chicken- one chicken for 6 people - eats about half of it, and then starts cleaning like a ferocious, angry, possessed woman.

Meanwhile, my youngest child is with me, and she is a vegetarian.  Mom hasn't been to the store in over a week, so there is very little in the house, and there is nothing for a lactose intolerant vegetarian to eat. 

I asked my sister if she could move her car so that I could get out, and she told me she "wasn't moving her car until the house was cleaned."  Frustrated beyond words, we began cleaning.  I cleaned out the tracks in the windows.  I sliced my finger open on the tracks... Youngest child was beyond starved, but I had nothing to give her, and my car was sandwiched in.  No way out.

I cleaned baseboards.  I cleaned cobwebs.  The kids pitched in and cleaned windows and magic erasered the walls.  We loaded the stuff for Goodwill that was still sitting in the front yard.

Throughout it all, I kept reminding myself that this wasn't about me, this was about my Mom.

At 5, I told my sister I had to leave.  I loaded my kids in the car, and at 5:30, she finally ambled out with Mom and her youngest daughter and they took off.

We were starved.  I showed up at Mom's house having had a Starbucks coffee and a piece of pumpkin bread.  At 1, I split what was left of a chicken thigh with middle child.

We went straight to Wegman's and grabbed dinner from the hot bar.  We went upstairs to eat dinner, and recover from the emotional stress of the day.

At this point in the day, youngest child had had a piece of pumpkin bread, a banana, and two popsicles.  She downed  a salad, a bag of nuts, and a hunk of bread.  The poor thing was starved.

But again, we reminded ourselves that this was about Grammy, not us.  Grammy's house is going up on the market a week from this coming Sunday, and she wants to move the house quickly.

After our fruitless stop at Goodwill, we finally left for home.  The hideous Washington traffic was worse than usual, and it took us 3 hours to get home last night, even though we left Northern Virginia after 7:00, when traffic has usually begun to die down.

This morning, I looked through my e-mails and found a note from my Mom.

"I just realized" she wrote, "That she had nothing to eat.  There was no food for her, and your sister wouldn't let you get your car out to go get food.  I'm sorry.  I should have realized that was what you were trying to say when you kept saying "I need to go to the store and get something for her to eat."   I couldn't understand why she wasn't content with the chicken."

I know, I know, this is about my Mom, and what's best for her.  It's not about me.

But I'll tell you, when I couldn't sleep last night, it was all about me. 

I really do need to let this go somehow.  But how?