Oh, joy. They’re home. For the summer.
Don’t get me wrong. Their mother and I have been aching for months to have them back in our newly empty nest. Lucy is a rising senior in college. Will has just finished freshman year. And there’s nothing we’ve looked forward to more than buying all their favorite foods, making full-tilt, home-cooked, sit-down meals, and listening to them regale us with tales of their college adventures.
And for the first couple of days – all right, for at least a week or two – that’s just what we did. Knowing how hard they’d worked (and played) over the course of the school year, we naturally wanted to serve up all the comforts of home. So what if he wants a late-night bowl of cereal? And it’s just fine if she disappears with the car for hours at a time. Look, they’ve earned it. And hey, it sure feels good to be back in your own bed now, doesn’t it?
Hmmm. Maybe a little too good. I mean, I understand the kids should be granted the right to catch up on their sleep. But now it seems our children have assumed the nocturnal habits of possums and tree sloths and have taken to spending most nights staring at smartphone screens and daytime hours zonked out in protracted slumber.
Lucy decided to refresh her bedroom’s energy by rearranging all the furniture and banishing any decorations that might be considered girly. Still, she remains so thoroughly glued to her bed that we can’t tell the child from the sheets, pillows, and duvet.
Over in Will’s room, the muscled figure stretched out diagonally on the mattress at first resembled a Greek god toppled from his pedestal and now resting in gentle repose. But as the weeks went by – and the noon hour continued to come and go each day – our boy started to look more like a dead fish that had washed up on the beach. Who still expects you to come in and rub his back.
I suppose we should have seen it coming when they first walked through the door. Like freight that might have tumbled off the deck of a cargo ship, all the bags and boxes they brought home from college simply ended up in a pile in the middle of the living room. Large plastic storage containers still held long-expired snacks – boxes of Pop-Tarts, Cheez-Its, and Goldfish crackers stale as cardboard – that we bought for them at the beginning of the school year. A lot of it is still sitting out there.
Now that we are halfway through the summer break, we have come to realize that our college-age kids are observing the literal definition of vacation and expect us to provide them with a premium, four-star experience.
Groceries that enter the house must reflect the culinary habits and random dining routines they have acquired on those faraway college campuses. Pity the poor parent who commits the unforgivable sin of not knowing the exact brand of popcorn Lucy expects you to have on hand at all times. Will seems to have set a goal for himself to live on a diet of cereal alone; empty bowls, complete with sticky spoons, now turn up all over the house.
Shampoos, conditioners, and oddball brands of body wash currently clog the bathroom counter, toilet paper is disappearing at an alarming clip, and our electric and water bills look like they’ve been goosed with a cattle prod. But that doesn’t faze the kids, who have decided that their showers must duplicate the length and breadth of those endless tropical waterfalls you might find at a Caribbean resort. And while Lucy’s Rapunzel-like hair now regularly clogs the drain, her brother’s showers last even longer than hers, despite college fraternity hijinks that have left him with nothing but a crew cut. What on earth could he possibly have to wash?
And don’t even get me started on the laundry train, which appears to be having serious trouble leaving the station and is going to require a lot more detergent than we currently have on hand. Bag upon bag of clothes that apparently have not been washed in months – or maybe even since Christmas – still litter Will’s bedroom. His sister says not to go in there. It smells like an alpaca ranch.
But even if the wastebaskets throughout the house are overflowing and the recycling is piling up beyond belief, we do love having the kids home, and feeling that old, familiar energy, and smiling at the sound of their voices wafting down the stairs as they call out to ask if dinner is ready.
I suppose it’s true that Mom and Dad probably aren’t a picnic either as we try to reset the empty-nester rhythms and routines we have fallen into. I see that we are now at a point where virtually anything I say will be considered terminally dorky, or at the very least idiosyncratic, as I hold forth on the right way to load and unload the dishwasher, how best to arrange silverware in the drawer, or whether the dryer’s air fluff setting will remove lint from freshly washed clothes. The kids watch amazed – and a bit alarmed – as their mother and I conduct entire conversations with the dogs (without the dogs contributing anything, of course).
Still, I’m sure they are beginning to ponder what we have already come to understand: that the four of us have this precious time together only a little while longer, that a summer like this is not a forever thing, and that there comes a time when you have to stop trying to raise your kids and just let them be.
Maybe they do go to bed leaving all the lights blazing, or forget to close the door to the refrigerator, or run the gas tank down to empty too many times to count. We have to remember that they’re living by their own rules now. And there’s only one thing left for me to do.
I think I’ll have a Pop-Tart.
