Dawn Is Me

Randomness.

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Gina’s home. We helped her to load her stuff in the car when we went to get her yesterday. She packed in typical college student fashion, with an interesting mix of actually-packed stuff, loosely packed stuff and just stuff.

So, when I was trying to help her with her stuff and her attempts at juggling seemed poised for disaster, here is what my uber-cool college student daughter said to me:

“Nooooo! Not my teddy bear! Not my teddy bear!”

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I guess I was wrong. Having health insurance really does make a difference to how much attention you pay to your health.

Major dental work is about to happen in the household. I’m tickled pink because I’m looking at a pain-free mouth with which I can eat the foods I prefer to eat.

Spouse is bummed because it’s all making him feel old.

Perspective is everything.

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Kimmie says that she likes to chew on her boyfriend’s head when he lays it on her shoulder.

For the record, she doesn’t actually chew it. She sort of mouths it.

I asked her if that’s what she did when she was not in a position to interact with the guy’s other head.

She declined to answer. Well, actually, what she said was, “I hate you.”

—

Note from Ricky’s teacher:

Just a quick note to let you know that Richard was unprepared for class numerous times this week. His brain is swirling with information about minerals and crystals, but the papers and pencils are not there.

My response:

Guess he has trouble with graphite and wood, huh? I’ll exchange some words with him, thanks for letting me know.

That settles it. The boy needs a secretary.

Well, I did it.

I managed to get all four of my children through another school year … although, for some of them, I had less to do with it than for others.

Gina has survived her first year of Ithaca College. Right now, she is finishing up the first session of her summer course in Anatomy and Physiology, which she has to take for her major. Her lab practical was Wednesday and she is feeling quite confident about it. Her last test is tomorrow and then she has a week off before second session starts.

Notwithstanding that caveat, she successfully navigated freshman year and came out of it older, wiser and with a 3.0 average. Not too shabby.

David graduated from high school and will now embark on some form of job search. He really wants to work with/for his dad, doing computer reconditioning and repair. I expect he’ll get some of that sort of work but not enough to constitute full time employment. That would be fine with him, ultimately lazy individual that he is. I’d rather he got a real job, even if he isn’t going to be moving out anytime soon.

Kimmie finished middle school with distinction. At the beginning of the school year, I formed a goal for her. I wanted her to get her grades up. She did a magnificent job, managed to stay out of trouble for pretty much the entire school year, made honor roll during her third semester and finished with an 80 average in the fourth semester. She has come so very far … I’m proud of her.

Next year, she hits high school. Eek!

And Ricky is now finished with elementary school and ventures forth into the hitherto unexplored world of middle school. I’m hoping he has some sort of epiphany this summer because he is so very scatter-brained and more than a little dishonest in the minor matter of homework. He could do very well but lacks self-direction and self-discipline. We’re going to need to work on that.

Middle school. That’ll be an adventure.

For now, though, what all this translates into is that I no longer have to get up at 6:30 a.m. In fact, I don’t really have to do that anymore at all. Gina will be back at Ithaca in late August, David will be altogether finished with school, and Kimmie and Ricky can both get themselves up for school at this point.

In some ways, it really does get easier when they get older. Of course, in some other ways, it gets harder … but that’s a subject for another post.