EMPTY NEST SUPPORT THREAD - PART 3

[mrsrhodgilbert]

The comment about where they now live and consider to be home is interesting. If dd doesn't go back to until the end of January she will only have just over two months until the Easter holidays. She will actually come home on my 50th birthday and we are all going away for a few days. After Easter she then has about another 4 or 5 weeks left, possibly with a few exams after that.

That sounds like no time at all and then she will be back for the summer, hopefully with a job again. If some dc consider they have left home, do they not come back for the holidays?

I'm hearing from her much less and she seems quite busy with work. I'm not sure she feels she has many friends yet and it seems quite fluid still, but she is definitely calmer. She has a few pre Christmas things lined up, ice skating, panto, club parties, lunch out etc so I hope some friendships will be cemented. Still no plans for a house for year two but ive tried to tell her not to panic about that. Some people who were sorted a few weeks ago might not be any more.

Jelliclecat she needs to talk to her tutor to see where the problem is and what she needs to do. Maybe she's having trouble with exam technique?

minsmum I'm sorry about your mother.

Mine seems to be enjoying the post exam social life. I have very little idea what is involved, I'm just told they are busy. They don't get exam results until the end of the month, after they've come home.

Thanks Ispring & already. Jellicle it would be a good idea to speak to the tutor if she can they will want to figure out what has gone wrong too.

Just asked my dd when will she know if she has passed this year I got a blank look and a shrug

Thanks for the suggestions about DD speaking to her tutor. I have already suggested this and speaking to student learning services but she is not keen. I will continue to try! She is still quite upset and hasn't yet got the third result.

On the plus side we have worked out that one subject she only failed by about 3 marks and the other one by less than 10 marks, so not a complete catastrophe.

Mimsmum - sorry to hear about everything you are coping with. Puts DD's exam results into perspective.

Had to laugh this afternoon. Ds has had one particular close friend all the way from infant school days. This particular friend came round to our house this afternoon and the two of them were in ds's room playing on the x-box. Really, in the last ten years the conversation hasn't altered, just the depth of their voices!

How comforting! I would love that, but DS seems to be determined to go round visiting all his old friends in their new lairs. One of his friend's parents have moved to the USA. OI said, bring the poor boy back here whenever he likes. DS looked at me witheringly and said 'He has a Girlfriend!'. So that's what girlfriends are for!

He's off today for two weeks. He turned up all packed, dressed and ready to go - a day early. Not only a day early, a day and a half early. He thought it was 7am yesterday, it was 7 pm today. Such a shame I can't put this on FB. I could block him, but someone would snitch!

first year exams were passed, apparently its the grading you get later.

We're still expected to arrange our life around their comings and goings, without much notice of when that will be but they are now being told that has to change or they can make their own way to stations and airports and sort out another way to get to and from university. They have to grow up sometime

DS came home this evening, with half the kitchen content of his flat and all of his clothes because they all needs sorting out as he is still growing. I'm sitting in the only free space in the sitting room. What felt odd was when he said 'I'll put two loads on tonight'. I almost offered but just stopped myself in time! It's lovely to have him back though. We had a huge hug. He'll be back and forth on the National Express coaches to see friends and look for a new flat, he's just having one week away with us seeing family, it's up to him the rest of the time but it's nice to have him based here again, although his flat is his until the end of August so spending the odd night there won't be a problem.

DS just finished 3 weeks observing/ assisting in a couple of UK secondary schools in preparation for a possible PGCE after his final year. Bit shocked at the difference between UK schools and those he's experienced in France and Spain. Lack of interest & respect mainly. Don't think it's put him off though.
Now has 11 weeks to himself - thought he was going to Spain for a month but now looks unlikely.

I expect he'll need it. DS is really tired. Has just said that he has a few days work in Leicester recording a chamber orchestra. No wonder they gave him the job - he forgot to add accommodation to his quote! All part of the learning curve I suppose.

Hello all, thought I'd pop by. It's nice to see some familiar faces and hear about the students coming home for a while. Mine is doing well, enjoying her summer job and saving money. I'm very happy to see that after all the weight she lost last year it is creeping back on again and she is buying bigger jeans. She looks so much healthier.

I have now recovered from surgery and have just started a three week course of radiotherapy. So far no problems and we have a holiday to look forward to a week after it ends. I'm not joking when I say every one of us is ready for it this year. Hope you all have a lovely summer.

Hello mrsrhod! So glad for both of you, that things are looking up. I do hope that things continue to do so. We haven't even booked our holidays yet as we don't seem to be able to do so without it interfering with something important for one of us. I'm getting a bit worried that we won't have one at all! But apart from having to go out on an extra shopping trip today to stock up on meats and cheeses, punishing DS by making him come with me, it's lovely to have him back.

Hi mrsrhod great to hear you and yours are doing well. DS has put weight on this year too - now looks like a man instead of a lanky lad
Hope the treatment goes well and you have a lovely holiday.

made that sounds really interesting work but your post made me laugh - just the sort of thing DS would do

A year ago I would have been astonished by the treatment I am getting now - DS made me a coffee in bed this morning! He was always helpful if he saw something was needed, but would never have thought of doing something like that. I am hoping that he will do it every morning!

Dd is going to leave soon. 12 hours by flight. Thousand miles away. I'll not ready to the emptiness of our home yet.

No, and I do feel for you. I have DS back home now for at least a month and it's wonderful, but I know I shall feel bereft all over again when he has gone. I did one of those stupid facebook quizzes to find out what job you should have, and it came out 'Mother'! I was shocked, as that's not my profession, but I thought, I have just been made redundant from that job.

A thousand miles away is not good. One of my friends has married an American, so their son was able to get into Princeton when he failed Oxford. They miss him so much that they rent out a spare room to a student as a sort of substitute. It has worked out very well. If we lived in a city, I would do it too.

Thanks for your thoughts madeofkent. It's the first time for dd to leave home this far and for this long. Most probably, that will be five years at least. Although she will come and go during holidays, things won't be the same. She has once suggested me to keep a kitty at has substitute.

• to keep a kitty as substitute. I think it won't work lol.

Janjanmama, I feel your pain. We live overseas and ds left on July 6th. That's it, gone forever :-( yes of course he will come home for holidays. Ah yes but not exactly. On the day he left the packers came and everything went into storage. We are planning our next move, it is likely to be very sudden. So we are all homeless. Ds is happier than I am. He has just taken an intensive 2 week driving course whilst staying with his grandparents. Today he travelled to London for his internship. In august he goes away with his friends, I will catch up with him for results day.
It's hard to hold it together sometimes, he has exciting adventures ahead and I wish him all the best but for me my heart is breaking. I miss him, we are so close, I miss my beloved house, my plants. Just driving home from work is complicated as I try to avoid the way we used to go. I work in school and we went home together everyday since he started juniors.
I know it's the right thing to do for him and my husband but it's hard. I feel unsettled as I don't know when we are exactly moving or where exactly we are going! I am excited but this interim period is just too hard.
To all empty nesters.
Wanders off wearing a brave face.

Isthiscorrect - I feel the same... I am now trying to avoid the places that dd and I had once have lots of fun before. I know sending her to study aboard is good for her. But it's hard to think of the distance. This summer my husband and I will go to London too. Just want to spend more moments with dd.

Sorry to hear about your current situation. I hope you will settle very soon. It's not easy to be overseas parents.

DS had a pet rabbit. I say 'had', because when he left the rabbit and I consoled each other, we both missed him and it was more like a dog or cat than a rabbit, and was allowed everywhere. Then the blasted thing keeled over the day or so before he was due back for a short break! So now I miss both of them during the term. I miss being a family. I even quite miss having a fridge full of things I have to resist!

Oh made, how awful for you. Hopefully you are managing to resist the call of the fridge, easier said than done.

I'm no good at the empty nesting bit when it comes to my dd and she wants to spend all her holidays traipsing around the country with friends, I feel left out and lonely and rejected and the silly thing is when she comes home I feel worse, not better when she goes off again after the 48 hrs which she deems to be my lot. Moan. Most days I'm fine and I have given up missing her as it doesn't seem very constructive, but every so often I wonder why the time we have together was so short and wish I hadn't been a working mum.

DS managed two weeks with us before he started planning trips away with friends, I felt quite honoured really! We will collect him on Wednesday and take him away for a week, then he has another week with a friend planned. It's working quite well. I'm hoping to get a week with him in September before he goes back, but I doubt it as I think he has a job at Fresher's Week. He does have to keep going back though because he is still flat-hunting. The rents have gone up hugely this year.

It's great to have your DS back madeofkent. No matter how long, it is better than none. Seems rents go up high everywhere. I feel it because I'm living in the city with crazy house rate. For the good side, you can see DS a more bit before he ends his flat hunting. Hope you have a lovely summer!

He was getting all excited because when his student loan stuff came through they had given him a rise, he thought he was going to be better off. Obviously they knew something we didn't... I hope you have fun in London too. We have rented a cottage central to where many of our families live and shall be visiting them, because they have been complaining about not seeing him and we reckoned that we would haul him round while he is still fairly obedient and still partially reliant on us financially so we can blackmail him! His sister will come back for a weekend while he is here too - that's when I'm truly happy, when all my family are back together under the same roof. Every time, I think it may be the last time.