Time for fur babies, everyone!!

Katie -
I do know just how you feel. Glad I dared to start this post, almost didn't. Didn't want anyone to think I was whining. Sometimes the head says one thing and the heart another. As a wise person said to me, our feelings don't always make sense. They just are.
:)lots2do

If he's anything like my sons, He will time his visits home regularly. My son managed to make it home when he ran out of clean cloths and when he needed a hair cut.

When my oldest Graduated high school, I cried so hard all day that I couldn't go to the ceremony. it hit me like a brick wall that day. hadn't even thought of it till the day of. Am not sure why as It wouldn't be an empty nest, lord knows I still had 10 younger than him at home.. it was just my first I guess...

I had nearly the same reaction when my son told me he was getting married to an out of state girl. They now live 500 miles away!!

I know exactly the way you feel!!! My son just graduated on Saturday from HS and I cried the 2 days before and of course on that day. Really trying to be happy for him, BUT damn I'm going to miss him. He's going to VT, is yours going to UNH? If you would like, maybe we could get together and go out fabric shopping & lunch sometime.

Oh cheer up rest up cause your be sure prized just how much your here from them, an they all ways know the way home!
An where there is all ways open arms waiting for them.

When my daughter (my baby) went in to the Air Force, I was OK with it. I had her hubby and little one here while she was in basic in Texas. And then she went off to England for her first assignment and that was OK, too, because my mom and dad were both from Wales and England was just next door. I went to visit her several times and when we said "good bye" at the Airport each time I totally lost it. It was like, "Wow, you are really all these thousands of miles away". My SIL would always tell me he hated to see me go because I always made him cry (Dammit, Kathy, you're making me cry.). She was in Special Security Forces and that always scared me because it was in the middle of the Saudi crisis and I never knew where she'd be. Many times she was buried in a bunker somewhere. One time, I cried all the way home and the guy sitting next to me wouldn't even talk to me.

I know exactly how you feel, and I was and I'm still not a smother mother either. We have two grown children. When our daughter went off to college on '91, only 100 miles away, I cried, even though she would be liveing in a trailer in my MIL's yard. Still didn't make it any easier. When we took our son to college in '95, 500 miles away, I cried, and was more afraid for him, than our daughter, He knew absolutely NO ONE there, At least our daughter had several students that she grew up with and graduated from HS with going to the same college. It does get easier, as time goes by. I knew when I talked to him on the phone that he was really homesick. However the first time our son came home, I could hardly stand to watch him leave to go back to school. I didn't find out for several years later that our daughter was really homesick too. She was always the most independant, and I never thought she would be home sick. Both have stayed in the town where they attended college, and we get to see our daughter more often. We only get to see our son twice a year. Even now it is hard for me to watch either of them drive off and go back to their homes. I guess it is just a mother's natural feelings to want them "to spread their wings and fly, but not really leave the nest." Just hang in there you will get through it all. I would suggest lots of notes, care packages, letters and cards, more so than phone calls. All are necessary, but at least they ge mail from home. I would like to add a line that I read before our daughter went off to school. What ever you do, do not clean out his rrom and start using it for something else. Because when he comes home he will expect to go to his own room and see it just as he left it, and not feel like he no longer has a home or is a visitor in the house. Our daughter has moved most of our stuff out but still has her own room. Our son still has his room just as he left it the first time. Let him decide when you can and should use his room for something else. Just about three years ago our daughter said mom, take my room for sewing because of the size and light. I'll use your sewing room, since I'm only home for a night or two at the most. I was totally shocked, but she helped me change the rooms.

It all makes me wonder about my own Mom. She was cool as a cucumber when they dropped me off at school each time. Had to make my bed, of course, but was cheerful and chipper. Wonder how her rides home were. I'll have to ask my Dad, she passed away in 2006. My Dad did tell me recently that she had a rule that we had to go to a college at least 100 miles away. I didn't know that, but I did follow the rule.
lots2do and now off to work