Kim's Blog

April 6, 2010

When I dropped my son off at the University of Windsor to begin his four-year degree in science last September, I assumed he would learn a lot, mostly about science.

As it turns out, science may have been the least of his lessons.
And his professors - as hard as they must have tried with my scattered and attention-short kid - were the least of his teachers.

Life, and a roommate from China, taught Michael the most.

When we first met Charlie on move-in day, we weren’t sure it was the best match. Mike has always been a little introverted and communication has always been way down his list of priorities. Charlie, it appeared, could barely speak English and seemed equally shy.

Mike is a bit of a neat freak. Charlie is the opposite. I glanced towards his side of the unit on our first day there and saw it was already a wild pile of clothes and books. What, I worried as we left the two alone and headed home to Toronto, would become of them?

What became of them was an amazing friendship. Like Laurel and Hardy or Felix and Oscar, Mike and Charlie stumbled into adulthood together, making massive mistakes (preparing a slow-cooker dinner at 9 pm, without a recipe or ingredients), learning to tolerate quirks (Charlie chews with his mouth open, Mike continually clears his throat) and discovering that the world is very big, and surprisingly small.

Living with a foreign student let Michael see Canada through new eyes.
As the Olympic games transfixed the country, Charlie marvelled at how Canadians loved their winter sports. Watching Wayne Gretzky carry the torch through their streets, Mike struggled to explain how the Vancouver crowds could be so fearlessly camera-crazy and uninhibited.

Through Charlie, my son discovered there really were male teens on this planet who had never experienced Google or Youtube, or even seen blood on TV shows. And he discovered there were places where skateboarders don’t hang out in the neighbourhood park, but marauding monkeys do.

Those are just a few of the lessons they taught each other, and I know there are many more adventures ahead; Charlie and Mike have rented an apartment together next year.

There are a few more lessons Mike learned along the way to adulthood, courtesy of his first year at University of Windsor.

• When a mouse runs up your pant leg at a basketball game, it’s best to extend your leg and whack your thigh. Then you might want to run to the bathroom and wash that leg.
• When you lose your wallet, check your jeans pocket before you start the long and complicated process of cancelling your bank card and ordering new identification.
• Cooking, and managing time are both very hard to do.
• A room by the lounge is a bad idea, unless you’re okay with going to bed after 12:30 a.m every night.
• Pick your courses and buy your train ticket home on holiday weekends early.
• Old ladies take a long time to disembark the train – but you should never push.
• Don’t expect the meal plan to fill your belly if you’re male. A typical meal of chicken, fish, potatoes, peas, drink and pie came to $22, even with the student discount. Mike’s meal plan was empty by March.
• If you run out funds on your meal plan, you can usually find a female friend willing to sell you her leftovers.
• Go into first-year with an open mind. You’ll learn a lot, and the only one to nag you will be you.

So first year is nearly over. In just a few weeks, we will load up the van and take Mike and his belongings back east on the 401. It will be adjustment, for all of us. We will all miss Charlie – Mike will miss a buddy, we will miss the entertaining stories.

But Mike has some interesting plans for the summer. Charlie has invited him to China. The thought of it freaks me out a bit, but this could be a good thing. If he has learned this much being 200 miles away, imagine how much he’d learn being 8000.

Does anybody really read during Reading Week? – Feb. 24, 2010

I was in the grocery store the other day.

Other night, really. 9:30 p.m. The only time I can fit grocery shopping in.

Behind me, I heard a woman say: “Grab a package of those apple blossoms.”

“Which ones – cinnamon or caramel?” came the answer.

“I dunno, you pick.”

“Both?”

“Sure, why not. Get both.”

I knew, without looking, what these two shoppers would look like: a middle-aged woman and a young man. Of course.

Reading Week. Spoil-them-rotten week.

I’m betting that mom would never have let her son get both flavours of dessert if he was still in high school, still underfoot, still monopolizing the TV or computer and leaving crumbs and dirty socks everywhere.

No. Not when absence makes the heart grow fonder.

When Mike swooped in for reading week I was ready, with roasts and ice cream in the freezer, fresh muffins, fresh fruit, and party-sized bags of chips in the pantry.

There was little I could do for him miles away at university, but now that he was here for a week, dammit, I was going to be his mom again.

Of course, the day-to-day reality was a little different, and from what I heard from co-workers with university-aged kids, we weren’t alone. Issue number one: transportation. Seems there aren’t a lot of us with an extra car just sitting around in the driveway, waiting for our wayward ones to return. What that meant was a daily argument over who got the car keys. And when parents need to get to work, and Junior doesn’t plan on waking up at the crack of dawn to drive them there, Junior doesn’t get the car. So Junior sleeps in ‘til 1, 2, 3 p.m. (yes, Mike really did do that one day), slides out of rumpled sheets, plants himself in front of some screen with a bowl full of some food until the car comes home again.

Mom or Dad rolls into the driveway only to find their Reading Weeker waiting for them, hands outstretched for the keys. And those keys, and car and kid, disappear until 1, 2, 3 a.m. (yes, Mike did that once, too) and the whole thing starts all over again.

There were other issues. One mom I work with had a lovely battle over her son’s annoyance at having to wake up early for a dental appointment. How dare the dentist expect him to waste a day off that way?

Another had an interesting encounter with her daughter’s first boyfriend. This unknown young man was coming to visit with the family for the last two days of Reading Week. “You’re going to love him, Mom,” daughter said. “He’s always nagging me to buy healthy when we’re in the grocery store.

“But,” she added, “he has, well, piercings. On his face. A few. But he’s agreed not to wear his shirt with the baby cutting himself with scissors.”

He was actually rather sweet, my friend told me later. “Came in to the kitchen after dinner offering to help clean up and thanking me for the meal.” Her husband, however, was not so impressed. “He just couldn’t stop staring at his lip rings and eyebrows. Poor kid. I don’t think he stood a chance.”

So they swooped in, these budding adults, and swooped back out again. We parents commiserate and compare notes. Reading Week’s come and gone and our kids are growing up in fits and starts, on their own schedule, not ours. It’s easy to forget that, while they’re out of sight, we really don’t have any control over exactly HOW they’re going about this business of growing up. All we can do is sit back and watch. And when we can, buy them dessert.

Kim Zarzour is a writer, parent of three, and co-author of Good to Go: A Practical Guide to Adulthood. You can reach her at
universityparentblog@yahoo.com

 Cooking 101 - Jan. 25, 2010

"Can you boil water in a slow cooker?"

That's my son, not one for small talk. No "Hi mom, how are you? It's been really cold here lately. How about there?" Nope, he leaps right in the second you answer the phone. So I respond with the logical answer to his question.

"What the heck? Why?"

Turns out Charlie, his roommate, has a hankering for homecooked food. Chinese homecooked food. He's from Hong Kong.

We've been through this before. A few weeks before Christmas Charlie was craving a roast beef. Mike offered to call home to find out how. I'm flattered he thinks I can help. I'm flummoxed he thinks I can help over the phone.

"Why don't you look for something easier, in my book?" I reply. "There are recipes in there." (I've written a book for newly minted adults called Good to Go. My son, I am certain, hasn't cracked it open once.)

It took some persuading on my part and some rummaging on his part, but Mike found a recipe in the book that I thought would be easiest for them to tackle. It's called "Potato Chip Chicken". Basically, it's just chicken dipped in salad dressing and sprinkled with crushed chips. Not too healthy, but hey, you gotta start somewhere.

First, though, I had to describe what a chicken breast was. Explain the difference between thawed and frozen. Boned and boneless. Skinned and skinless. What exactly a "poultry" was and where that aisle could be found in the store.

Then I discovered that not only did the boys not own salt or pepper, they did not know if they had an oven. "What's that?" my wonder child said, "The thing with a window and a handle?"

He sent Charlie running down the hall to the common kitchen to discover that yes, there was an oven there. Okay, that's a start.

They called me from the grocery store. What does a baking sheet look like? Which of the million Italian salad dressings should they buy? And wasn't it a great idea they were going to make some asparagus too?

All evening long I fielded their calls, alternating between hilarity and disbelief (I won't tell you how much they spent on the chicken) but in the end, what they ate was apparently edible.

I, of course, worried. Did they wash their hands while touching raw chicken? Clean the counter? Cook it fully? Refrigerate everything right away?

Mike and Charlie, though, were buoyed by that success, which is why Charlie hit the store again last week. He returned home with a slow cooker and several packages of unidentifiable (to my son) meat and seafood. Charlie was determined they were going to cook Chinese.

One would think it common sense that one does not begin preparing dinner in the slow cooker at 8:30 at night. But one would not be these two Abbot and Costello-clones.

Charlie was convinced that the slow cooker was similar to something his family used back home, and they could use it to quickly cook some familiar-to-him food.

" How?" Mike asked his trusty roomie.

"Boil. You can boil everything in China," Charlie replied with confidence.

Well nowhere on the internet does it tell you if you can boil water in a slow cooker. I suggested they try boiling water in the microwave, pour it into the slow cooker and carry on from there, but of course the only thing they owned that was microwavable was a coffee mug.

How about a kettle? "A kettle?" he guffaws back at me. "What would I own a kettle for?"

By now it was 9 p.m.

"How would you cook it, fast, mom?" my smart son asked. I didn't even know what  it was. He took a photo on his cell phone and texted it to me. Tasty red fish balls. Crabmeat. Some kind of beef with labeling that was not English. I was stymied. Really, shouldn't these kids be studying or something?

Anyway, in the end, Mike thanked me and said they'd think of something.

I waited. And waited. Couldn't take it any longer. I called Mike. Well? Well they had a plan. They were packaging it all up and walking over to the local Chinese restaurant. Charlie had decided he'd offer them $20 to use their hotpot.

I knew, going into this that sending my book-smart, not street-wise son away to university would be a learning process. I just had no idea how much learning he had yet to do. But I am impressed with the boys' enthusiasm, their optimism, and their ingenuity.

I have no idea what they ended up eating that night. I lay awake for hours worrying until my eyelids grew too heavy to worry anymore. But the next day I went straight to the bookstore and found a present to mail to my son: My First Cookbook, it's called. There are pictures of spoons and spatulas, pots and potatoes, and bold-faced reminders to turn off the stove. Sure, they're pictures of six-year-olds, but you have to start somewhere.

And I have to start sleeping at night.

Kim Zarzour is a writer, parent of three, and co-author of Good to Go: A Practical Guide to Adulthood. You can reach her at
universityparentblog@yahoo.com

The seasons, they go ‘round and ‘round – Jan. 4, 2010

Fast.
That’s how I respond, when people ask me how my Christmas was.  It seems I blinked, and now it’s gone, nuthin’ left but the orphan pine needles clinging to the baseboards.

People warned me this would happen. Your kids get older, time gets faster. And when the kids were all mini-sticks, marbles and migraine-making messes, I couldn’t wait for things to speed up. Now I’m remembering that old Joni Mitchell song, dragging my feet to slow the circle down.

I had such big plans for when Michael came home for Christmas, visions dancing in my head like sugar plums: board games, cozy fires, maybe some old family movies. Michael and his little brother could skate on the backyard rink again, just like old times.

Christmas day was good, of course. I watched with pride as Mike joshed with his uncles, then patiently, gently, conversed with his toddler cousins, and I wondered how he/we ever made it this far.

And then the sweet day was over and he was out the door.

For the rest of that two-week break, in fact, he was always out that door - and at the strangest of times. He’d be out all day at a new indoor cycling park, finally arrive home at 10:30 p.m for “dinner”, a shower, and leave again at 11:30, asking if we could pick him up “later”. I didn’t even know there was a “later” after 11:30 p.m at night. Wouldn’t that be breakfast?

A few times he stayed overnight at friends, and he spent three blizzardy days at his friend’s Blue Mountain chalet. I’m glad he’s still keeping his hometown ties, but for us, left holding the fort, it really wasn’t a whole lot different from when he was living at his university residence, not answering his cell phone and making us wonder where the heck he was.

I felt sorry for his 13-year-old brother, Austin. A few weeks before Christmas, as we flooded the rink out back, I’d asked Austin “are you looking forward to Mike coming home?”

“Oh, yeah!” he responded. Yet somehow, those brotherly backyard shinnies never quite came together.

So tonight I lassooed my wandering first-born, insisted he join us for dinner before heading back to school tomorrow. We went to a great big Chinese buffet, totally pigged out and laughed at ridiculous, immature things, had some good, rare, face-to-face time, then waddled home, bellies full, family, I hope, reinforced.
And now we’re back to business, arguing about how early Michael needs to be at the train station tomorrow, (Me: at least an hour ahead. He: oh come on, 10 minutes, tops), wondering why he waited until 9:30 at night to tell us he’s out of razor blades and paper towels, nagging about the importance of getting everything packed, NOW, not tomorrow morning. I’m worried he’s forgetting something. Friends have told me stories about their own university-aged kids forgetting to pack their bus passes, student ID and room keys. I’m not couriering anything to you, I warn. I lie. I know I will.

Upstairs, I hear Austin, trying to persuade his brother to stay another night.
They were right, those wise ones who warned me everything would change. My eldest child doesn’t live here anymore, he visits. He rests his head tonight in the family home, but tomorrow he’s a grown-up again, resting his head on a pillow of his own.

Yes, Joni, we are captive on the carousel of time. Christmas came, and Christmas past.

Michael is off again on his excellent adventure, but he’ll spin back again. As long as there are laughs and love waiting for him here, there will be many more Christmases to come as we go round and round and round in the circle game.

Kim Zarzour is a writer, parent of three, and co-author of Good to Go: A Practical Guide to Adulthood. You can reach her at
universityparentblog@yahoo.com
 

Hello? Hello? Anybody out there? - Dec. 14, 2009

What is it about males and communication – or the lack thereof?

Why is getting them to talk like pulling teeth?

I’m sure some psychologist somewhere has an answer for that, something to do with Venus and Mars. But that doesn’t help much if you’re a parent and you’re wondering what the heck your son is up to, away at university.

My friends with daughters are in touch all the time. They share email jokes, chat on Skype, they’re Facebook friends and text-message all week long. The sons, on the other hand, seem to enter into a black hole when they go away to university, a bewildering Bermuda Triangle, resurfacing only when the wallet is empty or the laundry bag full.

We made one big mistake when we helped Michael get set up in residence. We did not insist on a telephone landline. Cell phone is fine, he reassured us. “I’ll have it with me all the time.” (I think he might even have patted us condescendingly on the back as he said this.)

I neglected to ask if he’d have it ON all the time. Forgot to ask if he’d answer it all the time. Forgot to find out if he’d have an answering machine or read his texts or emails, ever, or pay any attention whatsoever to this fancy iPhone thing he just had to have.

At the start of the year, his dad and I would call once or twice during the week and there would never be an answer. With no way to leave a message, we’d just have to try again later. When Michael finally deigned to call us, it was ridiculous how grateful we felt. Like parched dessert travelers, we’d grovel at his oasis-like phone call, gulping down whatever drops of information he let out.

And it wasn’t much.

Was he eating well? Had he made some friends? What were the profs like? How about laundry? The roomie? The marks? He’d grunt out the answers and in a flash he was gone.

Sometimes, his random phone calls home seemed bizarrely irrelevant. An urgent need to know from his father, for example, exactly how to work a particular weight machine in the gym.

One night, during dinner, the phone rang and his dad answered. The rest of us sat at the kitchen table listening to half of the conversation:
“Hi Mike, what’s up?...When did I start to lose my hair? In my 20s, I think. …Well, I guess it started around the forehead… Yeah, then moved to the top of my head. .. No, I didn’t do anything about it….No, you can’t do anything about it… By too much testosterone, maybe…No, you can’t take estrogen…Why? ’Cause you’ll start growing other things!... Oh, wait, there is one thing that works. You might want to write this down. Got a pen? Good. First, take a spoon from the cafeteria. Yes, a spoon. Now put it in the freezer. Next, (you writing this down? Good.) Next, after 24 hours, take it out of the freezer. Put it on your forehead. Go out into your residence hallway. Spin around three times. Yeah. It's a joke. Get away from the mirror and go study.”

After a few months of accepting that this meaningless and random contact was about all we could expect, we had a scare, and everything changed. Michael’s uncle, who lives in Windsor, offered to take him and his younger cousin to a Spitfire game on Sunday afternoon.

Uncle Bob called us in Toronto to ask us where was Michael. He couldn’t reach him on the phone and they were supposed to pick him up for the game. After several attempts on our part, Uncle Bob and Mike’s cousin went to the game without him. We, however, kept trying to reach him, all day and into the evening, getting more and more worried as time went on.

Where was he?

The sun set, it grew frigidly cold and still there was no answer. By 9 p.m, we were calling the university switchboard. They put us through to the residence contact, but all we got was an answering machine. We did not have a phone number for his roommate, or for the residence RA. We didn’t know the names, or numbers, of any new friends. We felt completely helpless.

By 10:30 p.m, Mike’s dad had had enough. Something was wrong. Either we call the police, or he was getting in the car and making the four-hour drive to Windsor that night. He didn’t say exactly what he’d do once he got there. Start wandering around campus and the streets of the city yelling “Michael”?

Suddenly, I had a brainwave. The lady who used to provide us day care here in Toronto had a daughter in the same residence. We tracked her down, and the sweet girl offered to go knock on Michael’s door. A few minutes later she called back. There was no answer on his dorm door. Now what? It was 10:30 Sunday night and neither Mike, nor his roommate, were home.

My husband was putting on his coat when we received the phone call. It was Michael. And he was angry. How dare we disturb the whole residence, make the RA come searching for him? Apparently Mike hadn’t realized his uncle’s hockey date had been finalized, his cell phone was out of batteries, and he and his roomie didn’t hear the door-knocking because they had earphones on.
So what’s the big deal, Mike wanted to know. I won’t go into the details, but it wasn’t a pleasant conversation. We did accomplish a few things, though.
Now, we’ve got his roommate’s phone number, a way to reach his RA after hours in an emergency, and a promise from Mike that he will try harder to keep in touch.
We promised we wouldn’t bother him during the week except for emergencies, and check in once on the weekend.

And Mike set up an answering service on his cell phone. It goes like this:
“We're not able to answer the phone right now. To leave a message, please press 'star' and then 69, ask for extension 3891, wait for the beep and press #2762, then key in your mother's maiden name and place of birth. If you want to leave a call-back number ask for extenstion 4463, then push the number sign, then 234, then backspace, type in your address backward, tap three times on the phone, jump up and down, then hang up. Beeeeep.”

I think Mike gets his sense of humour from his dad.

 Kim Zarzour is a writer, parent of three, and co-author of Good to Go: A Practical Guide to Adulthood. You can reach her at
universityparentblog@yahoo.com

The Flu Bug Arrives - Nov. 24, 09
 

Michael hasn’t had his H1N1 vaccination.
Instead, he has had a dead caterpillar.
Let me explain.
I've been mildly concerned about my son's higher risk of contracting swine flu, given the fact that he's living cheek-by-jowl in student residence. As soon as I learned the date of the university’s vaccination clinic, I marked it on my calendar and periodically reminded Michael over the phone to make time on that day to get his needle.
“Sure, mom,” he’d say, in such a way that I knew he wouldn’t get that shot without being led there first in handcuffs and chains.
Still, I held out hope.
Then, on the day before the clinic was to be held, he called me at work to tell me he felt awful, had a sore throat, headache and maybe a fever. And he had an important test the next day. What should he do?
Advil, I said, wondering if he hadn’t studied for that test and was searching for a way out.
I'm hugely empathetic that way.
A few hours later, he called to say he felt worse, and he couldn’t focus on his studying for the next day’s test. What should he do?
Walk to the drug store, I suggested. Buy yourself a digital thermometer and some lozenges for your throat. It was dark and cold outside, but I was 400 km away; what else could I say? An hour or so later, he called me back and I helped him figure out how to work a thermometer (which would have been funny, if I weren’t on a work deadline and if I didn’t have the nagging suspicion he really just wanted to get out of his test).
Well he really was running a temp: 102.5 F. For a kid who has never had a fever in his life, it was impressive. I suggested to keep taking Advil or Tylenol every four hours and let me know if it got worse.
Which it did. He called me at 2:15 a.m., worried he was going to throw up.
Bucket by the bed, I told him, only half awake. Over the phone line he was groaning and wretched and I remembered the many years I lay staring at my bedroom ceiling, waiting for the sound of my child’s sickness, hoping it hit the toilet or pail and not the sheets. Michael wasn’t down the hall, he was down the 401, but it felt much the same.
Someone in his residence had explained how to inform his professor over the internet that he was sick so he didn’t have to write the test the next day, but I’m not sure he took much comfort from that. He was miserable. Several times through the day he called to ask what to do about his throat and headache and I really couldn’t offer much except to go back to the plaza and ask the pharmacist – but that meant a windy walk to the drug store, something he just couldn't face.
I felt sorry for him, but at the same time realized that the first time you’re sick on your own is the first time you realize you’re not a kid anymore. This was a rite of passage, and he had to get through it.
One evening, about three days into the sickness, he called to ask me if I knew what a “bdkhadgudr” was. Or something like that. Some weird word I’d never heard of.
I had no clue.
Michael explained that his roommate was worried about him. His roomie had just arrived in Canada that fall to attend the University of Windsor and had brought some ancient herbal medicine with him. It was very valuable, very powerful, and he offered one to my son.
Michael said a polite thank you and put it on his desk. But when he saw the crestfallen look on his roommate’s face, he realized he’d hurt his feelings. Turns out, this “medicine” was a very rare caterpillar that, and … I’m hoping I got this right … crawls around some sacred mountain somewhere, eating a special fungi. This fungi grows inside the caterpillar, causing it not to become a butterfly, but rather carry powerful healing properties. The boy's parents sent him to Canada with only three of these special things. Michael's roomie, a sweet kid who was genuinely concerned, was offering him one.
“So I took it.”
I stood there sputtering into the phone with disbelief as Michael tried to reassure me that that he’d looked it up on the internet and it has “surprisingly high nutrient value” and when you boil it into a lump it’s freaky but you have to swallow it and he did .
I couldn’t decide whether to blow up at him in anger or roll on the floor in laughter or call an ambulance to his room. This is a kid who’s studying biology and hoping for a career in medicine – and he’s eating fungi-filled caterpillar cadavers.
Of course, I did not sleep at all that night.
You’d better call home right away, I told him, if you start seeing funny green monkeys dancing on the wall. And don’t even think of taking another one! And call me in the morning, first thing. I want to know if you wake up. I was only half joking. I mean really, the parenting books just don’t prepare you for this kind of stuff.
Well, he did call me the next day, and lo and behold, he felt fit as a fiddle. So fit, in fact, he was out of bed and heading to class.
Me, I didn't feel so fit. My head really hurt.

Friday, Oct. 9, 2009 -Part I WE’LL BE THANKFUL… IF HE CAN JUST GET HOME

It’s Thanksgiving weekend. Time for big family dinners and cozying up in front of the fireplace. Been looking forward to this for some time. Finally, our first-born’s going to return to the fold for a little TLC.
So where the heck is he?

Well, he’s sitting in a classroom on a Friday night, sick as a dog, facing a rainy and cold walk back to an empty residence when class is through, unsure if he’s ever going to make it back home for the holiday. Poor kid. But of course, as usual, it’s his own doing.

Michael’s great at math and chemistry. The nitty gritty of day-to-day life? Not so much. Choosing his courses for the fall semester, for example.
Oh, the many times we nagged him: pick your classes, we said, they will fill up and you’ll get stuck with what nobody else wants. And he put it off and put it off until finally, frantically filing at the last minute, he got stuck. The dreaded 6 to 9 p.m. Friday night class was just one of the unfortunate results. So lesson learned. Next time, he’d plan ahead, right? Wrong.

For more than a week we’ve been on his case to get a train or bus ticket back home for the holiday, but of course there was always something else more important. Test to study for, sleep to catch up on. My co-worker, whose daughter is also in first-year, told me she heard bus tickets were almost all sold out. I texted the info to Michael. No response. He got a nasty cold; that didn’t help. But it was no excuse. Surely there were a few minutes to spare somewhere in his schedule to go over to the Students’ Centre and figure out how to get himself back to Toronto. I vowed I wouldn’t bail him out by purchasing a ticket for him online. I gave him the VIA website and the phone number for Greyhound, but that was it. This afternoon he called me wondering what to do, and by the way, what was he going to pack everything in, since he didn’t have a suitcase. It reminded me of the many times he called from school to say he forgot his lunch. I tried not to bail him out then, too. I listened to his voice over the phone, hundreds of miles away. His nose sounded stuffed up. You could tell he hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in a while. I was tempted to say I’d hop in the car and come get him, but then, that’s bailing him out, isn’t it? We’re supposed to let them figure these things out on their own, aren’t we? And so here we are, wondering if we’ll see him at all.

I’ve got a turkey thawing and his favourite food in the fridge. If you see my kid wandering ‘round campus, tell him dinner’s waiting, would you? I’ve got my fingers crossed. Will keep you posted.

Saturday Part II

The phone call at 8:45 a.m. is a surprise. Who knew he could do that on a Saturday? He’s reserved a spot on the 9:30 train to Toronto. He wants to know how, exactly, one catches a train. Is it sort of like catching a plane? How should he get there, and by the way, he needs to be there in half an hour.
Um, okay. Did I tell you Michael has ADHD? A little gift from me to him. (That turkey we’re supposed to dine on this weekend? Probably won’t thaw ‘til Thursday. Planning ahead’s not our strong point).

So I take a deep breath and tell myself, ‘baby steps’. He’s got this far at least. This is Thanksgiving weekend. I will be thankful for the little things. Over the phone, I lead him through the process, from catching the Crosstown 2 bus (which of course, it’s too late to do. He greets my news that on weekends, it likely only comes every half hour, with sputtering disbelief. We have been spoiled by Toronto’s seamless TTC/Go system), to finding a cab (he doesn’t have a phone number, no yellow pages, no one at the residence front desk to help – internet, oh wonder child?) to what a ‘platform’ is (‘oh, okay, that’s the place where you go stand?’).

Throughout this painfully detailed explanation, Michael is sniffling, snorting and coughing with whatever virus he’s picked up. I don’t really want to bring this germ into my house, but hey, for better or worse, we are family.

Monday Part III

And so finally, here we are, bellies full, family complete. Michael made it after all. It wasn’t the cheapest way – bus would have been less expensive, or at least the six-pack deal at VIA, and certainly Transit Windsor would have been cheaper than a taxi to the station, and buying a new suitcase at Zellers, well, that was just dumb if you ask me, but still. Baby steps. He made it here. And it is nice.

Around the dining table laden with our fall feast (did you know you can deconstruct and microwave a still-frozen turkey?), he regaled us with tales of his first month away: the cool chemistry experiments, the girl who’s asked for math help but just might be interested in more, his roommate’s annoying fondness for the alarm snooze button and their battles over the thermostat. He had us all in stitches as he described teaching his roomie, an international student, the fine Canadian art of sucking Cool Whip fresh from the can.

No, Michael is not newly, finally, mature; he didn’t offer to help clean the kitchen after Thanksgiving dinner, he’s lost his wallet about five times since he’s been home and he still daydreams in the shower until the hot water’s all gone. But hey, for better or worse, we are family. It’s my new mantra. They’re downstairs now, Michael and his little brother, laughing over the ping pong table and my heart really does swell with gratitude.
You don’t need perfection to feel thankful.

Kim Zarzour is a writer, parent of three, and co-author of Good to Go: A Practical Guide to Adulthood. You can reach her at
universityparentblog@yahoo.com
 

DAY ONE: DAZED AND CONFUSED  Sept. 17, 2009

What just happened?
It’s taken more than a week to sink in and I'm still a little stunned.
Did we really just leave our boy in another city and drive away?
Oh my gosh, I didn’t even hug him good-bye!
 

This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. So much for the quiet leave-taking, the last bits of sage advice and reassurances that this was going to be a great adventure and you’re going to do just fine, son. Instead, it’s all a blur.
 

First, the drive down to Windsor.   
Moving day.

I’m mellow on the road, with my three “children” tucked into the back of the van (squashed actually, their lanky arms and legs wedged between Michael’s ridiculously large pile of belongings), recalling all the other times I’ve done this highway drive. I know this route so well.

The 401 and me, we go way back. Trips from Windsor to Gramma in London, to Toronto Science Centre with my grade school. In my young, Windsor-centric mind it seemed like the flat, field-hugged highway was the door to the rest of the world.

Then came my own days as a university student in Toronto, my high school sweetheart studying at University of Windsor, the 401 our only tie. For four years we looped back and forth between cities, the long ribbon of highway connecting us until we finally tied the knot for good. When babies came, the 401 took me back and forth as I visited with Windsor family – breastfeeding in the pitstop washrooms, children colouring in the backseat, the familiar farmhouses and small towns of southwestern Ontario rushing past my windshield.

I could do that drive with my eyes closed – sometimes nearly did. It isn’t the most exciting stretch of travel, I have to admit.

And now this grand old highway is making another connection. Like a precious silver ribbon, Highway 401 will now tie me to my eldest son; back and forth we’ll go again, the white lines ticking the passing time as we keep our family connected.

So that's the mellow part.
It’s all craziness after that.

We nose our minivan into the bustling residence parking lot. It's jam-packed and electric with energy. My overly serious son struggles to stay in charge as he manhandles his microwave and boxes up to his room. Everyone seems to have a brand new printer box under one arm and plastic shelving units under the other. I try not to giggle at the dad lumbering out of his pick-up truck, his daughter’s yoga mat under one hand, cigarette in the other, or at the bedraggled mom carrying a Guitar Hero instrument like she’s wondering what for, or the burly teenaged boys carrying brooms like they’re wondering what for.

We meet Michael’s roommate and my heart sinks. I was hoping for a gregarious go-getter for my taciturn son – someone who’d drag him out to the orientation events and push him to join in. Instead, it’s a student who has just arrived from abroad. He seems, impossibly, even more reserved than my son, with negligible command of the English language. They exchange tentative smiles and a few attempts to converse while his dad and I continue to lug in and lug in all the ridiculous things we’ve brought.

I am starting to panic.

A last-minute race to Zellers and Canadian Tire for hooks and shelves and batteries and granola bars turns out to be a bad idea. We arrive back, arms loaded, to find the other residents gathered together in some kind of group activity. The shiny-faced RA waves Michael in. What? What about our wise words? This is it?

He’s gone?
He’s gone.

won’t let myself feel abandoned. I will be strong. I remember what I promised my son before we set out that morning: Rule 1, he said, no tears. Rule 2, no trying to make playdates. He was only half joking. He knows me well. But I did promise.

So, with a deep breath, feigning a confidence I don't feel, I follow my husband towards the exit. Glancing over my shoulder, I see Michael and his roommate. They are huddled together, talking. Somehow, across the cultural divide and the nerve-wracking transition, they have found a sudden bond. They laugh, eyes lit with excitement.

It dawns on me. My son is going to do just fine.

He lifts his head, gives me a quick wave, then returns his attention to his new life.

I slip back onto that grand old Highway 401, direct my attention to the familiar drive, and to my own new life, mom of a newly grown-up man.

Kim Zarzour is a writer, parent of three, and co-author of Good to Go: A Practical Guide to Adulthood. You can reach her at universityparentblog@yahoo.com
 

 Sept. 4 2009  Labour Day Looms - And So Do The Tears 

Anyone else been blindsided this week?

I think it happened in the grocery store. Wheeling down the aisle in my mommy mode, tossing in the apples and cheese strings and bulk-sized granola bars, it hit me.

This is all going to change.
Next time I shop, this cart will be noticeably emptier.
Michael, our family’s bulk-sized eater, will be gone.
No longer can I set myself on supermarket cruise control. This is going to take some thought.

Michael hoovers up nachos and cheese for breakfast, lunch and dinner. No one else likes the stuff. Scratch that one off the list. He devours ice cream like a druggie. Won’t need to buy that in bulk anymore either.

No more wondering if he’d like some beef jerky or red licorice for a treat. Everything’s changed.

For the past few months, I’ve been telling Mike “this is a big year for you….lots of growing up over the next little while.”

He, of course, rolls his eyes and returns them to whatever screen has magnetized him at the moment – ipod, cellphone, TV or computer. Or, as he’s been doing more and more lately, grabs the car keys and heads out the door to his next pressing social engagement.

Meanwhile, I’m left looking at the back of his head wondering who’s really facing a ‘big year’ and ‘growing up’.

Methinks it’s me.

I’ve always had this plan for the future that involved finding a career, a good spouse and raising a family - but it always sort of stopped there. My road map consisted of big family dinners, homework advice and tucking in kids. Beyond that, well, I never really looked much beyond that.

Now, suddenly, “beyond” is here and the road map’s out the window.
How does one do this – this parent-but-not-really-a-parent thing?
I’ve come to a dead halt in the cereal aisle, dazed and confused.

Oh, the zillion times I’ve wailed 'that kid’s driving me crazy and I can’t wait ‘til he moves out!' The times his dad, in the heat of a father-son argument, has said ‘you don’t like our rules, there’s the door!’

And now this. He is at the door. And we have to let him go.

I’ve spoken with a lot of parents these past few weeks about how they got through move-out day, and the stories vary. One mom said she thought she’d be a basket case, but in fact, she wasn’t. After the frantic weeks leading up to the move, the nagging and worrying, list-making and shopping, she was just glad to get it finally over with.

One dad told me how he held it in throughout the move-out day, kept the tears in check until they’d said their good-byes and hit the road back home. He was stopped at a red light at the university entrance, the dorm and his daughter in the rear view window, when the tears gushed out. He and his wife, blubbering like babies, looked over at the car beside them to see another middle-aged couple wiping away their own tears.

They had a sense, as they drove along Highway 401 at the end of that Labour Day weekend, that they shared the road with hundreds of sobbing and melancholic moms and dads.

As a mother, I remember labour. It was painful. I wonder if that’s why they call this Labour too. This hurts.

I know, I know, it's part of life, but that doesn’t make it any easier.
Michael has threatened me, with every inch of his six-foot being, not to dare cry on Sunday. I’ve promised. I will be strong.

But it’s okay now, isn’t it? Moving again down the grocery store aisle, a little more slowly this time, I let my eyes fill with tears, my heart with sadness, and fill up the cart with his favourite treats one more time.

Hopping aboard the rollercoaster ride to independence
Aug. 31, 2009-08-31

You know that feeling you get when you’re heading up the first big climb of a roller coaster? That ominous click-click-click, the nausea-inducing mix of dread/fear/anticipation? Well that’d be me right now, strapped into the roller coaster wondering what it’s going to look like on the other side of the rise, and wondering if it isn’t too late to turn back now. And there in the car beside me, or behind me or out in front, is my first-born child, click-click-clicking upwards on a ride of his own, feeling, I’m sure, even more trepidatious than me.

We have, after all, spent the last 18 years preparing for this.

I'm an author/journalist with more than 20 years' experience writing about parenting and education - and a completely freaked-out mom whose eldest heads off to university next week. It’s going to be a watershed year for our family. My husband and I are both born-and bred Windsorites. We left our hometown to follow careers in Toronto, but are thrilled that our son, first to leave the nest, has chosen to go 'home' to pursue his own dreams.

That's the good news.

The not-so-good: we are totally unprepared. He, because he still believes the fridge and toilet paper roll magically refill; me because, well, he's my first and he's soon to be 250 miles away - need I say more?

I’m hoping to use this blog as a kind of journal to help me vent and process the transition, and, hopefully, to share the ride with all the other passenger/parents on their own children’s rollercoaster ride to adulthood.

Over the next few months I’ll be posting about this interesting journey and hopefully, hearing from you, fellow travelers, about your own travails. Maybe we can all learn from, and lean on, each other as we ride the thrills, hills and spills of this coming year.

Kim Zarzour is a writer, parent of three, and co-author of Good to Go: A Practical Guide to Adulthood. You can reach her at universityparentblog@yahoo.com