As we reflect over Memorial Day this weekend, we feel in our bones that the summer of 2024 has begun.
The girls wrapped up their freshman year last month, and have been reacclimatizing to life at home. Our front door should be replaced with a revolving one, as their friends are coming in and out, all the time. It's actually pretty awesome.
Henry, who earned his Eagle Scout last month, informed us this morning that he only has 12 days left of 10th grade. I asked him if he could imagine what it must've been like for his siblings who had just wrapped up their sophomore year of high school when we suddenly moved to Vermont and he said, "Yes, I can imagine. I was there, too, and I'm so glad we moved. But let's not do it again, OK?"
No worries there, this continues to be the most amazingly beautiful and peaceful place we've ever been. Charlie and I have no desire to live anywhere else and pinch ourselves daily this is home, and the view from our roof.
William, who has been touring all over Europe the past few weeks and apparently dominating the croquet circuit in Norway, will be arriving home from his (almost) one-year German exchange in 3.5 weeks (572 hours, whose counting??).
Next Sunday, Gracie will be leaving for summer camp two hours northeast of us, where she'll be the head rowing instructor (again), so I'm a little sad I won't have all the birds back in the nest until the third week of August for about two days before the girls - and William - head off to UVM.
It really will be nice to have all the children under one roof again. But, I don't want to create any false pretenses that we're some perfectly-oiled family machine. While Charlie and I have a steady hand on the keel and we are immensely happy, teenagers can definitely throw some chop to the waves and can make us a little crazy at times. This is life, right??
You'd think our children would all realize how incredibly lucky they are to have a great house and yard, cars available for use, refrigerators stocked full of food, and parents who are extremely laid back and cool - and only request that they clean up after themselves, pitch in and help around the house, get a part-time job, and not be glued to their phone. Sometimes they need gentle reminders and mama needs religion, especially if they roll their eyes or say "whatever."
It's a process! We're all growing and changing! This is transition! Church really helps!
Seriously - it really helps. At least it does for me: it's always a grounding experience that recalibrates my heart and rejuvenates my spirit.
It wasn't even three weeks ago the girls made the arduous 2.5-mile journey from UVM back to the house with all of the dorm supplies that we had purchased for them last year, which somehow seemed to expand by a factor of 10 and resemble a fledgling adult blob of treasured possessions: text books, notebooks, random college swag, microwaves, small refrigerators, coffee cups, can openers - bowls - spoons - posters - towels - pillows - stuffed animals, Ramen Noodles, Motts Gummies, bottles of Dawn dish soap, three jars of half eaten peanut butter, creatively painted pots with fragile little plants that are teetering between life and death.
Lucy, our quasi-adopted daughter who was in our scout troop in Houston, and moved to Vermont last year to attend UVM, was the first to move out. We had gone to the school on Sunday to collect her possessions which would be stored at our house over the summer while she returns to Texas. When I went back to the dorm to pick her up for the airport two days later, she sheepishly apologized that there were a "few more things" that she needed to keep at our house, and then proceeded to fill up our GMC Yukon XL to the brim a second time. Granted - she opted to keep all of her winter clothes and boots in Vermont, because why bring those things to Texas when the air temperature is likely to dip below 95 in the three months she'll be there? After I dropped her off at the airport - a sense of urgency washed over me as I considered there would be TWO MORE girls coming home with at least as much gear. So I rushed off to Home Depot and cleared them out of the largest totes that I could find in an effort to get everything neatly organized until it was needed again in the fall.
Elizabeth and Carolyn moved home a few days later and my tote organization system was working great. All the knick knacks were secured away, the last lid was being snapped on for storage in the far back corner of our basement, when the doorbell rang. On the doorstep was Elizabeth's cross-country friend who was just about to begin her drive home to West Virginia but first needed to drop off a few things that Elizabeth said she could store at our house.
Of course we were more than happy to help.
But you better believe Elizabeth got the side-eye.
