Our week is already in over drive and has been for a couple of days. DS is off to college this week!! It is slightly possible that I saved a few too many tasks for last week and this week, but it will all get done one way or the other.
We have never done this before. All of our girls went to the local community colleges and didn't finish. Now we (VERY VERY PROUDLY) have 2 DD's in their 30's going to school full-time for their Bachelor's in their respective fields. We have just never done the packing up the kid, driving to the college, and move them into the dorm thingy. Geez this is a lot of work.
DS is our only son of the 5 kids and he and I are really tight. As I have mentioned many times on here, he has Asperger's so not so many years ago we didn't think we would be on this journey. We were blessed with the world's most amazing autism team throughout Jr and Sr high school and now when you meet M, you would be quite surprised to learn he has Asperger's (yeah I know the clinical world doesn't use that term but many in the mom world still do). What they taught my son in dealing with the world is beyond words. He has coping skills and strategies that really serve him well. He is not defined by his Asperger's.
If one more person makes the comment of "K is going to have a really hard time with M being so far away from school" I am going to kill them. yeah, I have been a mama bear over the years but this is the goal we have been working towards over the last year or two! We are there! I am not going to turn into a puddle that my baby boy is going to be 500 miles away. We can skype, we can call, we can do whatever he needs to do, but I am just so tickled that he wants to do this and HE IS READY TO DO THIS!!! I am not going to leave the school kicking and screaming. I am going to leave knowing he isn't on a different planet and he will be ok. I told him I am not calling him first. He can call when he wants to. And, of course, I made no mention whatsoever that phone calls might be directly related to care packages.
Between going through all of his clothes and deciding what he is keeping, what is being donated, him cleaning his room and the basement to my liking, and making sure we have everything, I am going to need a margarita or 4 over the next couple of days.
The real adjustment is becoming empty nesters. I am married to the best guy ever but he has a need for autonomy (he is a solitary kind of guy sometimes) and we are both fairly independent and, for many years, were used to schedules where we weren't home together very much. DS was good company during that time. Now DH and I are in the midst of figuring out our new normal and what that looks like. Should be interesting.