Leaping From The Box

It sounds like David has settled in well at Evansville. I called him last night and then passed the phone around so everyone (Bill, Charles, Kat) could talk to him. He told me about the robot he has in Computer Science class and a bit about the Japanese alphabet (or it’s three alphabets). And also said I should see the movie “Accepted” because it was funny and had a very unschooling slant to it). He told his dad that everyone seems to gather in his room and he’s not sure why. It did sound a little bit like there was more than one or two people in there! But definitely it sounds like he is having a good time and not terribly homesick.

We’re still trying to decide whether we’ll go up for Family Weekend later in September or combine visiting David with a possible trip to New York in October. I guess the first decision to be made is whether we’re going to New York or maybe the decision to be made is who is going to New York. It’s my aunt and uncle’s 50th wedding anniversary celebration, so I definitely want to go!

Sunday my dad had a get together at his house and my brother Eric drove over from Atlanta with his family. Daniel spent Saturday night here playing X-Box with Charles and Shawn. I took lots of pics, so maybe later this week I’ll get one posted up here of Eric with Miss Munchkin. She was frightened of Eric when she first saw him Saturday night, but my Sunday afternoon she was having great fun with his beard.

Oh, and it looks like my kittens have all found homes! I just need to decide if I want to keep one of them or not. We’ve been talking of possibly moving in the semi-near future and it is going to be difficult to find a place where I could have my six cats roam freely outside, let alone adding another one to that number. Do we really need to keep any?

Well, we survived D-Day! It was a long, long day Saturday.

We left home before noon on Friday, so we were in Evansville by 6 p.m. That gave us time to swim a bit, go eat supper and get a good night’s sleep. Saturday we got to the college at 9 a.m., which was the earliest you could begin moving in. There were lots of fraternity guys there helping with the unloading, so I didn’t have to carry anything, which was good because David’s room is on the 4th floor. But there was some delay in the bed lofts arriving … an outside company handles those and they were not very organized. We waited for bed parts from 10 till 2, with bits and pieces of it arriving throughout that time. So you had to wait in line to get your first pieces and then keep checking back to see if more had arrived. It certainly frazzled a lot of parents. So it was 3:30 before we finally left Evansville. And 9:30 by the time we got home.

David called Sunday noon … I had told him to call me Sunday night. He was in line for lunch, so he couldn’t talk long. But he sounded okay and said everything was going fine.

And so far I only see one thing he forgot to take … the summer reading book he was assigned when he went to orientation in June. That was sitting in the chair next to him computer, hiding under a magazine. So I will have to ship that to him today.

It did seem a little weird yesterday without David around, but I am sure we will adjust. David was definitely ready to leave home, ready to be at Evansville, ready for us to leave him there. It made it a lot easier for me knowing that he wants to be there and that it seems like a good place for him. And it’s only four weeks until the Parent Weekend!

David at Evansville under the “lazy tree.” He’s moved in and ready for Mom and Dad to leave!

Charles being lazy on the “lazy tree.” He really liked this tree. It’s called the lazy tree because so many of it’s lower limbs are on the ground.

The picturesque main entrance.

David, taken the day before he left for Evansville (August 17, 2006). Also the day he passed his road test and received his driver’s license!

Twelve days until D-Day. Delivery Day. Deliver David to College Day. And I don’t feel like I’m coping very well. Bill says I’ve been micromanaging everything this summer and haven’t let David do enough of the preparations. He’s probably right. It’s been easier to focus on the preparations, keeping busy with the minutiae, rather than dealing with the knowledge that life is going to change.

It is going to be a huge adjustment not having David around on a daily basis. Of our three children, David is the one most like me in disposition and attitude. I’m going to miss having that even keel, come-what-may-we-can-cope attitude around. Heck, I’m just going to miss having a live body here during the day. Even though Charles is still home, he spends so much time at karate that some days it’s like he’s not here at all.

It was a full year before I really adjusted to Kat’s being gone when she moved out, but at least she did so with no warning. I didn’t have time to obsess about it before hand. And the six months before she moved out she was gone a great deal of the time anyway, having a car and license. So I was more used to her absence. David has neither car nor license (although he is going to take his driver’s test this week). This past year, especially, we’ve spent so much time together commuting to his college classes.

But I know David’s ready to experience new things, ready for new challenges. I’m pretty sure that Evansville is going to be a good experience for him and he is excited about going. It’s the anticipation, the waiting that is so hard for me to deal with. I always handle a fait accompli much better than the lead-up time to anything. There shouldn’t be so much time between being accepted to college and actually going to college!