e-missed

So this weekend, my sister-in-law forwards an email she got from my daughter at college. It's a nice chatty, informative and affectionate note, the kind I wish she'd send to me, except for one thing. She says "Hey Aunty R! I'm looking forward to seeing you all for Thanksgiving, a friend of mine lives in Portland and they are going to be driving back for Thanksgiving break so as far as I know I have a spot in the car..." Aside from the usual fears (is the spot in the trunk, does the trunk have a seat belt, will this car get smashed like a pumpkin on the highway, what friend from Portland? male or female?) this message reveals that Kalei never read an email I sent 3 weeks earlier informing her that I had bought an airline ticket for her to Portland for Thanksgiving and that Aunty R generously offered to pay for it. What's more, Kalei and I talked about this before she left for college and she even told me her preferred dates. I see now that she handled this inquiry, along with a multitude of others, by tossing answers my way hoping to keep me occupied and at bay for the moment. Then I recall how in those early weeks, as Mark and I fumbled our way towards the best strategy for communication with the girl, we (Mark and I) decided that email was the best medium for business items, so there'd be a record (ha!) and so she could deal with it when she was ready (Ha! ha! Ha!). And so I sent her maybe 4 or 5 emails around that time, which in Kalei-land is apparently parental overload. So, strategy be damned, I called the ungrateful wretch on the spot, and of course, waited, frustrated and fuming, for a return call. When we finally talked later in the day, about 75% of our time was spent in full blown miscommunication over which medium to use for communication, and the balance defensively trying to untangle how we got so jammed up. Then Kalei called back to apologize, thank me for buying the ticket, and yes, as much as she hates the airlines who will without a doubt lose her luggage again, she will fly to Portland.

The next evening, an email arrives bearing photos of her friends, with captions listing their names. She calls shortly after to talk us through them. The photos show fresh-faced youth, boys and girls, hiking across dunes with skim boards to the coast, building beach bonfires at night. They appear to be a decent crowd, not highly hipped out, no dreds or obvious piercings (though one has a cigarette). The girls live in her dorm (her age), the boys are "transfer students" (older).

Now if we could get academic detail I'd be in heaven (chimes in the perennial worrier and wanter). But (saith the wiser letting go-kine parent on my left shoulder) ... this is a lot; a thoughtfully crafted gift of a glimpse into her new life, something to savor and celebrate. Mazeltov, mama! a good omen for the new year (Yom Kippur).

advice from the parents network

There's this parents listserve at Kalei's college which I signed up for. There are days it's overwhelming--when I come home to 30 emails from the network, or when a round of scolding breaks out about, of all things, too many emails from the parents network-- but for the most part it has brought useful and friendly information and experiences. Here are a few resources offered in response to my question about stages of adjustment that college students (and their parents) go through during the first year:

Freshman year in 5 stages:

from Champlain College website

http://www.champlain.edu/portals/parents/five.php

(cut and paste this into your browser, can't make it a live link for some reason...)

Stages freshman go through during their first year (or so): Advice to college professors on the subject. article is 20 years old, but it still seems timely to me

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:XmsPeL3j76IJ:www.irc.uci.edu/TRG/PDF/02_%2520Meet%2520the%2520UCI%2520Student/Adjustment_Stages_for_Incoming_%2520Freshmen.pdf+stages+of+college+adjustment&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us

For parents on letting go:

http://www.greatschools.net/cgi-bin/showarticle/ca/670

Empty Nest Syndrome: a British doctor's advice to mums...love the lingo.
http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/womenshealth/features/ens.htm

On stages parents go through, one parent wrote:

I was thinking......broke, poor, destitute for the parent stages! :)

Recommended Books: I'm currently reading Letting Go, and it's great...recommended by multiple sources; haven't read the others.

Letting Go: A Parents' Guide to Understanding the College Years, Fourth Edition
Karen Levin Coburn & Madge Lawrence Treeger (bought used on Amazon.com). Note: Be sure to order the 4th edition.

Empty Nest ... Full Heart: The Journey from Home to College
Andrea Van Steenhouse

Don't Tell Me What to Do, Just Send Money: The Essential Parenting Guide to the College Years [Paperback]
Helen E. Johnson & Christine Schelhas-Miller. Note: this one has scripts to help parents through every kind of issue, concern, emergency, not just
with freshmen but also older students.

anything to add, dear readers...?

dog dragging you down?

Slept in this morning and perhaps that's why I remembered this dream:

I'm flying. As it always is, flying is fun and exhilarating, and a bit precarious-- although I know how to stay up, I can easily decsend quickly--it's like I can never quite take it for granted. So this time I was practicing flying, there was some effort involved, and I was doing ok except this little dog kept grabbing onto a piece of cloth and pulling me back down.

Yesterday, Jonah joined Mark and I for breakfast at the Hau Tree Lanai, and spoke of his desires to move to the Big Island after he graduates, to work at the new restaurant in Waikoloa that Sensei, his current employer, is opening up there, to live on our property in Waimea, to get a teaching degree, to travel for extended periods, to teach English for 3 months in China...what to do with his stuff...what to do with his puppy, Milo?

We puppy-sat Milo for 5 weeks over this summer. He is adorable and loveable and a rambunctious handful, not predictably housebroken in our house yet, chewing everything he can get hold of in his pug/bull-dog jaws, needing to run and rough-house, jealously demanding attention, and making life plenty busy for his more sedate elders, ie: our dog, our cat and us.

So, pretty straighforward symbolism: Here I am, starting to take off, or at least doing some practice runs, and I don't want this little dog (hey, I typed "god"--s'pose that means anything?) or anything else to be dragging me down.