Tupperware and Wine Glasses

The landscape of your home changes when children are no longer living at home. It’s quieter and cleaner. Every room that was touched by your child when he was living there is dramatically changed when he is gone.

My youngest son may be gone, but I have gained my laundry room back! No longer is it filled with piles of clothes on the floor, in the dryer or in laundry baskets. And speaking of laundry baskets, I no longer have to hunt them down because they are right where I left them!

Then there’s the kitchen. Since becoming empty nesters, our refrigerator has seen the biggest transformation. We can actually find things in it now! It’s no longer filled with gallon milk and juice containers, cheese sticks, packs of eggs and bacon.

And then there’s the dishwasher.

With children in the house, we ran that dishwasher about every other day. I swear, every glass we owned was in it, every time, not to mention every single fork and plate.

Now, it’s filled with Tupperware and wine glasses.

Tupperware because now we actually have leftovers, and wine glasses because we only have to run the dishwasher maybe twice a week. It might look like I drink a lot of wine, but it’s actually several days’ worth of glasses.

As I write this, the prodigal son is home for Thanksgiving break. The basement has been reclaimed by him and his friends; I’m missing a laundry basket, and the dishwasher is filled with everything except Tupperware and Wine Glasses. 

It’s good to have him home.

I Have a Name... And it's Not "Dude"

I am a Gen X, which means I was born between the mid 60s and early 80s. Throughout my working life, I have worked with many Gen Xers and Baby Boomers as well (the generation ahead of Gen X). I’m sure there were things about our generation that Boomers didn’t appreciate.

Now I’m of the “older generation” in the work place, and I work with….MILLENNIALS!

I'm quite familiar with Millennials.  I gave birth to two of them. But working with people my children’s age has been eye opening. Like every generation, Millennials have some deserved and not-so-deserved stereotypes: tech savvy, in constant need of praise and positive feedback, meaningful work, change and diversity valued, living at home AFTER college, etc.

There also seems to be the propensity the use of the word “dude” for male and females. I was use to my sons calling their friends “dude,” but that term was never used in reference to me… until I started working with Millennials.

The first time a 20 something year old man called me "dude," I said what every 40 something year old female should say, "I am NOT a dude."

And yes, I realized that I probably sounded like his mother. And if I was, I would have given him a swift kick.

He said, "Oh... I call everyone 'dude'"  

I guess that made it OK.

Here’s my definition of what constitutes a “dude”

1.      Male

2.     Under the age of 30

Clearly…. I am not a dude.

I have a name.  It’s not “dude.”  And if you try to respect my desire to not be referred to as “dude,” I’ll try to respect the fact that you think it’s OK to move back in with your parents after college.

Survival Tip: Plan a Trip

For my husband’s 50^th (ssshhh.. he still thinks he’s 35) birthday, I surprised him with a cruise. Even though his birthday was in April, I planned the cruise for September. Two reasons: to save enough money to pay for it and with my son away at college, we wouldn't have to worry about him left at home to his own devices. He was 18, and technically an adult. He no longer wanted to stay at friends’ houses when we left town. I got that. And when we would leave for one or even two nights to someplace close, we would let him stay home alone. But out of the country for four days? Was not ready for that. (See “ironic twist” at the end of this blog.)

It turns out that planning a trip shortly after our chick fledged was a great decision. It gave us something to look forward to and proved to be an excellent diversion as we stumbled through that first month of “empty nesting.”

The trip was our first cruise, and we had a great time. We swam with dolphins, witnessed an incredible sunset, drank a few too many mojitos and got in trouble for helping ourselves to tequila samples at the duty-free shop. The only regret: not turning off my “roaming” on my phone. Turns out, international roaming is quite expensive, and I came home to $300 in charges. Oops.

Formal Night

Being pushed by a dolphin

Splash!

Ironic Twist

My son and his friends decided to come home for the weekend when the rival high school teams were playing each other in football.  It turned out that it was the same weekend we would be out of town on our cruise. So planning to take this trip while he was at school and not home, therefore lessening the temptation to have a party, proved fruitless.

He said he didn't have a party… just four guys.  But this is what four guys did to the house

1.       Bent an inside tine of a fork

2.       Broke one of the legs of the kitchen chair

3.       Loosened the toilet from the floor

4.       Caused one blue towel to go missing from the guest bathroom

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Halloween.... What Halloween?

Halloween 2014 was poised to be an epic one.  It fell on a Friday (no school or work the next day!) and the weather was chilly and "Halloween-esque."

This was also our first Halloween without any kids.

We have a lot of good memories from Halloween past. It was this neighborhood where both our children spent their first Halloween.  When they were young, we had neighborhood parties, we dressed in costume and took them trick or treating and like every good parent, we pilfered their candy when they went to school (Butterfingers were my drug of choice.)

 What I thought would be an epic Halloween actually was an Epic Fail.

The first sign that things were off was the lack of decorations on people's homes. Our neighborhood use to be filled with spider webs, graveyards, orange lights and blow up pumpkins. I didn't even see one carved jack-o-lantern on our street.

We are among the guilty.

We stopped decorating the house when the boys were in middle school.  We stopped carving pumpkins when my oldest left for college. Between work, after school practices and weekend sporting events, we were tapped out. Neither boy seemed to mind or notice so we continued in our Halloween apathy.

I imagine the change in our neighborhood is due to the fact a lot of us are empty nesters.  Many have grown children with families of their own.

So, this year, we pulled out the fire pit, put on our Pandora Halloween music, filled the bowl with candy... and waited.  In past years, we would rush home from work because the first trick or treaters would be knocking at 5:30, a rush around 7 p.m. and done by 8:30.  This year, I think we received our first visitor at 6:15 and our last at 7. We even called out to kids who walked by our house, "We have candy!!"

Creepy and Pathetic.

I do miss the days when Halloween was more of an "event."

Next year, we will carve a pumpkin, drag out the fire pit, fill the bowl with candy and find Halloween music.

I'm not ready to give up.... yet.