Almost Enjoying Typical....

So it's been a couple days since I have written.... we left to take Sadie and Tony to Job Corp -- Tony to fly ti Wisconsin and Sadie to the center in St. Paul. They did remarkably well for their send offs and then Bart headed to Annual Conference (state-wide church meetings) and I came home alone to four kids. We started working on the attic and I was instant messaging Bart when the texts started coming in.

Tessa was texting about birth certificate and child support issues -- I won't go into detail there.

Leon was texting about a break up -- again, won't go into detail.

And then Sadie texted a very long dramatic text about how she couldn't stay there -- that she was too homesick and wanted her normal life back. She missed me SOOOOO much. She was nearly begging to come home. We hadn't exchanged more than three or four texts until the same message came in from Tony.

Yikes it was a barrage of angst coming into my phone! It's a good thing I had an Iphone -- other phones might have exploded under that much pressure.

I learned from my 12 years in College Student Development that those who go pick up their kids during those first few weeks of school don't do them any favors... I talked the Job Corp kids down, explaining that they were exhausted and had a very long day. I encouraged them to spend the next day getting to know people instead of sitting around texting their old friends. I explained that it is very normal to feel homesick the first few weeks and that everyone went through it and that they were strong and could make it.

Yesterday I spent my day at my office doing file organization and was fully anticipating an evening filled with more texts from the two who left home on Tuesday. Tony texted a few times, but admitted he was having a much better day. I didn't hear a single word from Sadie.

So I recognized somewhere during all of this that it is really nice to enjoy typical stuff. It is typical for kids to be homesick when they leave their families and to want to come back home! Since Tony has had some pretty serious attachment issues in the past, this is huge! And it is very typical for the same kids a day later to simply have forgotten that they missed their parents so bad they had to come home the day before and forget to make contact.

Last night was another night of packing the attic -- my friend Sue came over to help but mostly just to watch me so that I would keep working. I'm hoping she'll come back tonight and maybe even my BFF will join us. She hasn't had time for me twice this week -- so I'm guessing not, but we'll see. :-)

Today I'm off to take Wilson and Leon to visit their schools. Then tomorrow we are supposed to close on the house.

Oh yeah -- one more piece of excellent news. We submitted a claim for hail damage to our roof from a storm almost 2 years ago and they are going to pay for a whole new roof plus a few other things, making the value increase on our house.

Dominyk is having quite the meltdown about why he has to go to school when he is the ONLY ONE in the house who has to go today. Now a kid that is 290 pounds and 6'1 having a tantrum isn't really typical... but otherwise, I'm almost enjoying typical....