My oldest daughter came home from college this weekend. I have determined she can’t come home again until the end of the semester in December.
Although she hasn’t been home since she moved into student housing at the end of August, we’ve actually seen her almost every week. She’s conveniently only 45 minutes away in Redmond and for various reasons we’ve often needed to drive that direction.
It’s been easy to visit her and bring her things she needed from home, bring home things she didn’t need, take her shopping for a winter coat, see her grandmother who lives just up the highway in Bothell, pick her car up to repair, drop her car off after it was repaired.
But she missed our animals and missed her room after being away for a month. She appeared at home about 9:00pm Friday night. I knew she may be coming home, but didn’t expect her untilSaturday afternoon because she and her roommates were going grocery shopping first.
She got impatient to be home after her roomies decided a grocery delivery service would be easier and she was at school late into the evening. She texted me, but I wasn’t with my phone, so I didn’t realize she was coming early.
I was ensconced in my room for the night watching TV. My husband had to be at work Saturdaymorning by 5:00, so the lights were off and I had my headphones on. When my door opened into the dark, empty hall, I thought my youngest daughter needed something. I couldn’t see who was standing in the doorway, so it was quite the surprise when I discovered it was my daughter.
The next morning, I did what I do best and woke my daughters up by 10:00am. It’s my role in the family to make sure people are up being productive members of society. But since it’s the weekend and they work hard at school all week, I let them sleep in. However, I knew they both had homework.
Years ago, when my oldest started 10th grade, I announced that I would not be checking up on my daughters’ grades unless I was forced to do so. It’s really best if I don’t know about their assignments; if I know, I can’t quit obsessing over them and I can’t quit bugging them. Once they were out of bed, it all went downhill from there.
I realized how much less stressful it had been having my oldest daughter’s homework responsibilities being carried on in a different location. Suddenly, I was aware she had work to do, I didn’t know what exactly, but I knew there was something. I also knew she wasn’t getting any of it done.
I admit, it was partly my fault. I’m close to my daughters and we often have random moments of bizarre laughter and hilarity. We hadn’t had one of those moments since, well, since she left for college. We were making up for it when both she and my youngest daughter should have been doing homework.
One of the reasons it was important she live at school was to break those bad habits she had developed over the years of being at home. Home has triggers; I know, I live here and attempt to work here: walk in house, sit in chair, turn on computer, check Facebook. Bad habit wins.
So there us girls were, laughing and carrying on, distracting both my daughters from what they should have been doing. I have officially become a bad habit.
My daughter can’t come back until the semester is over. It’s for her own good.
Gretchen Leigh is a stay-at-home mom who lives in Covington. She is currently battling her own bad habits. You can also read more of her writing and her daily blog on her websitelivingwithgleigh.com or on Facebook at “Living with Gleigh.” Her column is available every week at maplevalleyreporter.com under the Lifestyles section.
