The kid is back. After 5 days, a tremendous amount of cell\nphone data expended, countless hours on a giant bus and all manner of historic\nsites explored throughout Washington D.C., my 14-year-old daughter has returned\nfrom her middle school trip. In one piece. With all the stuff she left with. (How\u2019d\nthat happen?) Without getting home sick or demanding we come get her. And\nwithout getting left behind at a monument when she was supposed to be on a bus,\nbut instead went looking for a pretzel. (How\u2019d that NOT happen?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To think just a couple weeks ago, my wife and I were\nworrying about getting her ready, getting her off and then what we would do\nwith our time once she was gone. What it would feel like to be empty-nesters for\na week, and whether it would take a psychological toll on us to have our only\ndaughter go away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Turns out it wasn\u2019t that difficult, or different. There\nweren\u2019t as many drinking glasses and candy wrappers left all over the house,\nand I never had to scream, \u201cYou had to walk farther to put that wrapper over there\nthan if you just put it in the garbage!!!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Boy, that was nice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I did learn some lessons. Things like: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 You eat out a lot when your kid is gone. Why is that? I\nthought I would cook so much, and cook things she hates that my wife and I\nenjoy. But you don\u2019t cook. While you eat lots of food you never eat when your\ndaughter is here, it turns out it\u2019s all fast food fried chicken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 Not only that, you lie about eating out a lot \u2026 especially\nwhen your mother calls to ask if you\u2019ve been eating out a lot. Because you give\nher a very hard time about her diet and how she NEVER cooks and how she is always\ngetting takeout. And she explains that this is just the way it goes when you\nget older and don\u2019t have kids around anymore. That it will happen to you one\nday \u2026 starting the day your daughter heads off on a middle school trip. But you\nblow a raspberry and say things like, \u201cNOPE! NEVER! NOT ME!\u201d Ooops. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 Your mother will call a lot. Well, she already calls a\nlot. But she will call a lot more, just to ask how you\u2019re doing. Is it\ndifferent? Is it quieter? Are you OK? \u201cOK?!?\u201d I told her. \u201cAre you kidding me?\nI\u2019m eating fast food fried chicken in my boxer shorts \u2026 I mean HOME-MADE fried\nchicken in my boxer shorts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 The dog, who normally sleeps with your daughter, will move\ninto your bedroom. Your dog will also be very itchy. Maybe it\u2019s an allergic\nreaction to your kid being gone. Even worse, your dog will think the optimal\ntime to scratch and chew herself like a pack of rabid, slobbering woodchucks is\n\u2026 4:30 IN THE MORNING!!! Are you kidding me!?! Even worse, yelling, \u201cARE YOU\nKIDDING ME!?!\u201d will have no effect on your dog, but will thoroughly miff your\nsleeping wife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 Your child uses a lot of cell phone data. Like a LOT of\ndata. Like in the first 10 minutes she\u2019s gone, you will have to contact your\ncell phone company and mortgage a kidney so you can increase her allotment.\nLord knows what she\u2019s doing. She will have used up more data than all of\nmankind generated in the last 250 years. She also will have burned out cell\ntowers up and down the entire East Coast. The cell phone company is going to\nwant you to pay for that! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It wasn\u2019t what we expected, but the week with her away\nwasn\u2019t all bad, either. Actually, it turned out pretty good. Like we can do\nthis thing, one day, when she eventually goes off to college. Not that we can\nafford that right now. Because between all of the eating out and the cell phone\ndata, I don\u2019t think we\u2019ll be able to afford anything for a very long, long\ntime. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The kid is back. After 5 days, a tremendous amount of cell phone data expended, countless hours on a giant bus and all manner of historic sites explored throughout Washington D.C., my 14-year-old daughter has returned from her middle school trip. In one piece. With all the stuff she left with. (How\u2019d that happen?) Without getting home sick or demanding we come get her. And without getting left behind at a monument when she was supposed to be on a bus, but instead went looking for a pretzel. (How\u2019d that NOT happen?)<\/p>\n
To think just a couple weeks ago, my wife and I were worrying about getting her ready, getting her off and then what we would do with our time once she was gone. What it would feel like to be empty-nesters for a week, and whether it would take a psychological toll on us to have our only daughter go away. <\/p>\n
Turns out it wasn\u2019t that difficult, or different. There weren\u2019t as many drinking glasses and candy wrappers left all over the house, and I never had to scream, \u201cYou had to walk farther to put that wrapper over there than if you just put it in the garbage!!!\u201d<\/p>\n
Boy, that was nice. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[576,561,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2020-nutshells","category-family","category-parenthoodandchildren"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2032"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2033,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2032\/revisions\/2033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}