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It's been a month since I dropped my youngest off for her Freshman year at the University of Arizona.  She survived the move in, rush week - with only losing her voice but not her sanity - and a week of dealing with huge diabetic highs.  Not bad for an 18 year old. I think I may have underestimated how well she can cope on her own. Not too many tears on parting, though the night before over hugs we confessed how we were both nervous ...

Letting go of graduating 18-year-olds and shooing them out the door can be a difficult time for many parents. The youngest of my three children is heading out in the fall, and I've been thinking back on my other two angels and how they definitely did what they could do to make our separation easier the summer prior to leaving. It reminded me of when they were 2 years old and went back and forth between being defiantly independent and running into my arms for comfort, reassurance and ...

Those of us who come from small families, or with few relatives, watch with envy as the summer migration of friends and neighbors head out to family reunions, and visits to childhood homes and vacation spots. My mom and dad were part of the east coast surge for California after WWII.  My dad, from Syracuse, New York had returned to California because he'd loved his basic training at Fort Ord in Monterrey.  Mom was from Ohio but had been sent to Hawaii to run a YWCA camp in ...

Here I am saying goodbye to my daughter who is heading out to her last exam on the last day of high school.  For the past 19 years, I have had a child in Elementary, Jr High, or High School, and now it's over.  What a shift!  Of course there are still two to get through college, but it's different, it's not on my watch.  They don't need me to wake them up, make breakfast, make them lunch, make them dinner, be available for activities, and drive them ...