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Tomorrow, we leave for our great road trip to Vermont.
Thus, today will be spent in preparation - cleaning so we come home to a worry-free house, packing, buying supplies (like a cooler full of Trader Joe's snacks and sandwich fixins), refilling medications. You know, the usual.
This will be the third time I've driven to Vermont. I flew twice.
On Thursday, Jacquelyn and I went to Ethan's 8th grade graduation. Some of the kids had put together a film over the course of the year which was pretty awesome. Afterward, there was a dance and then Ethan spent the night at a friend's house.
It is very strange to have Ethan be so independent. Letting go has been really difficult. I always thought his youngest years would be the hardest and it would just get easier over time, but it seems to be the opposite. I have to constantly readjust what kind of parent I am based on what kind of parent he needs as he gets older.
His mother (who always complains when she doesn't know about some school function, but never goes when she's invited, and then tries to guilt-trip Ethan about 'cutting her out of his life') is making the mistake of treating him like a child. She acts as though he stopped aging at year eight.
One of the hard parts is that I have to now trust that my choices about his upbringing have endowed him with the ability to make his own intelligent choices.
Sometimes I worry and think I was a better parent to a little kid. It was actually kind of easy. Even the whole teen-parent/being poor thing. It wasn't as bad as I was warned. It wasn't a walk in the park on rose petals either, but I was good at it. Being a parent to a teenager is difficult.
Only four more years before he finishes high school and goes off to college. And I'll see less and less of him over those four years. It seems strange to be nostalgic in that empty-nest way at ye olde thirty-one.
Thus, today will be spent in preparation - cleaning so we come home to a worry-free house, packing, buying supplies (like a cooler full of Trader Joe's snacks and sandwich fixins), refilling medications. You know, the usual.
This will be the third time I've driven to Vermont. I flew twice.
On Thursday, Jacquelyn and I went to Ethan's 8th grade graduation. Some of the kids had put together a film over the course of the year which was pretty awesome. Afterward, there was a dance and then Ethan spent the night at a friend's house.
It is very strange to have Ethan be so independent. Letting go has been really difficult. I always thought his youngest years would be the hardest and it would just get easier over time, but it seems to be the opposite. I have to constantly readjust what kind of parent I am based on what kind of parent he needs as he gets older.
His mother (who always complains when she doesn't know about some school function, but never goes when she's invited, and then tries to guilt-trip Ethan about 'cutting her out of his life') is making the mistake of treating him like a child. She acts as though he stopped aging at year eight.
One of the hard parts is that I have to now trust that my choices about his upbringing have endowed him with the ability to make his own intelligent choices.
Sometimes I worry and think I was a better parent to a little kid. It was actually kind of easy. Even the whole teen-parent/being poor thing. It wasn't as bad as I was warned. It wasn't a walk in the park on rose petals either, but I was good at it. Being a parent to a teenager is difficult.
Only four more years before he finishes high school and goes off to college. And I'll see less and less of him over those four years. It seems strange to be nostalgic in that empty-nest way at ye olde thirty-one.
