SMCM Move-In Day

The day finally came when our first-born is leaving the nest and moving in to his dorm for college. We've been getting in all the Owen time we can this past week, with 18th birthday celebrations (steak at St. Anslem), one last EPA softball game (Owen hit a home run!), lots of Doctor Who (we finished the Capaldi era!), and of course family cuddle time before packing up the car. But I'm not sure you can every get enough Owen time.

When the morning finally arrived we hit the road early to arrive at Owen's dorm in time for his 9:30am move in window. Unfortunately, so did seemingly every other freshman's family (except maybe for Owen's roommate Theo) and so there was a bit of a wait to actually get to his dorm. Once there (and once we finally located the email with his actual room number), the St. Mary's Move-In Crew helpfully unloaded our car for us and carried Owen's belongings to the his hall. 

We quickly started wiping things down, moving things around, and putting stuff away. We ran into a couple of hiccups with his refrigerator (too big to put under his bed, not a long enough cord to plug in anywhere else) and in hanging things on the wall (we didn't have the correct adhesive for Owen's Zelda canvas) so after we got things initially set up and briefly met Owen's roommate and his parents, we headed to the bookstore to pick up those items and a book Noa wanted.

We headed back and got the last thing put away and then went to the dining hall for lunch. After another stop at the bookstore to get a few things off Owen's syllabi (The Gulag Archipelago, Suicide of the West, and Intro to Macroeconomics), we took an extended tour of campus, including the waterfront.

By the time we headed back to Owen's dorm, they were getting ready for a hall meeting and were officially kicking parents out. We got in our last hugs and a final selfie before Owen walked us out the door. We didn't cry at the time, which was kind of amazing (though likely because I had cried profusely the night before while I wrote Owen a letter, and Allen and Noa being of stoic, Fawcett stock), but it was a pretty quiet drive home which was mostly spent wondering what Owen was doing now. 

Which was literally going over the rules of the dorm, but figuratively starting a whole new and exciting chapter, that we happily toasted to at the local wine bar.

(To see all the move-in pictures, click here.)

One last family cuddle before college

One more in our long history of taking family cuddle selfies before Owen leaves for college :-)

Home Run!

Owen has been involved in EPA Softball since he was in the womb and Elaine was still playing on the team. He went to Bad Air Daze games as a baby and I like to thinks some of his love of baseball has to do with all his time around our little informal softball league. He got his first hit in a real game just after he turned eight and has been playing in games ever since. Post-pandemic the format of games has been a little different as we most offices don't have enough players to field a full team, so we've been mostly doing pick-up games. We've been hoping to get one last game in before he goes off to college, but things were looking dicey for a while as weather cancellations and travel kept foiling our plans. But everything came together on the day between Owen's 18th birthday and the day he leaves for college and we were able to get one last game in. Owen and I biked down to the Mall, chatted with old EPA colleagues and teammates, tossed the ball around to warm up, and played some softball on a gorgeous day. Best of all, Owen hit his first home run! What a way to wrap up the season, and hope we can both play again next year when he's home from college for the summer :-) 

Adulting

When Owen was born, I remember reading a number of articles about how most baseball and hockey stars had birthdays in the fall, just after the age cutoff for their leagues. The timing meant that they would always be the oldest and biggest kids in their age group, and would therefore dominate their sports. Owen, being born more than a month prior to the cutoff, would never enjoy this benefit, but given that neither Allen nor I were particularly sporty people, this didn't seem like such a huge loss. What took me slightly longer to realize and internalize is that because of Owen's summer birthday, we effectively get one less year of him at home compared to all those October and November babies. Now as we prepare to send him off to college two days after his 18th birthday, I'm regretting not waiting a little longer to start our family.

Though I will say that we have crammed a lot into those years, particularly this past one. Owen composed and performed opuses. He received a provisional license. He went to a school dance (though he didn't actually dance...). Owen flew across the country by himself, went to a music festival in NYC with his friends. He applied, got in, and selected a college. Owen graduated. He rediscovered his love of baseball. He combed his hair.

Which is to say, Owen is totally ready for his next great adventure. And while I'm sad that we won't be there for the day to day of it all, I'm so glad to have had all the time that we did with him, so proud of what he's become, and excited to see what he does next.

So happy birthday, little man, we love you so, so much. Now go start your next chapter (and don't forget to call).

1. Never underestimate the healing power of Neosporen.
2. En passant isn't for posers.
3. Football is life. Unless it's Minecraft and you're the poor armadillo they're using as the ball.
4. Always remember there was nothing worth sharing like the love that let us share a name. And that cannibalism sucks.
5. Strike a pose.
6. In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate but equally important groups: the police who investigate crime; and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. Also, on occasion, the art thief turned government witness.
7. "The six inning minimum is just an extreme suggestion to negotiate from. It's MLB announcing that they want starters to go deeper into games. When it all plays out we'll probably end up with the double hook."
8. I'll get by with a little help from my friends.
9. In the end, it all comes down to parallel parking.
10. And in the immortal words of the 11th Doctor, We're all stories, in the end. Just make it a good one, eh.

Walk Off!

We thought that this Saturday might be the day for Owen's birthday party, but when Owen found out his friends had conflicts, our schedule was surprisingly open giving us the perfect chance for one last Nats game before Owen leaves for college. I was able to get five last minute tickets to the Nats v. Angels game behind the visitors dugout (all the better to see Anthony Rendon's first series back in DC since the 2019 World Series), plus it was Caturday at Nats Park so Noa was even willing to join us. Elaine and Noa did leave a bit early, after Noa enjoyed both their savory and sweet crepes and got their fill of watching the birds, but Owen, Mom Mom, and I stuck it out. We saw James Wood hit his fourth career home run and drive in another with a double to help the Nats come back to tie the game. Then in the 10th, Jose Tena hit a walk off single off of the center field wall for the Nats second walk-off extra innings win in a row. Let's go Nats!

 

But your kids are going to love it...

During our various trips to NYC last year, Noa decided they wanted to see Back to the Future the Musical. While we weren't quite up for another trip up to Broadway for it, when I saw the touring company was coming to the Kennedy Center, the kids were totally on board with getting tickets. Things got a bit more complicated when we found out the alley work that was supposed to happen while we were in Iowa was happening this week and we didn't move our car out in time to avoid being trapped for who know how long. Fortunately it's pretty easy to get around DC without a car, and and we were able to have a lovely dinner at our usual pre-theater spot and catch the show. Noa even agreed to take a nice family selfie at the Kennedy Center (in exchange for a mini key chain harmonica from the gift shop that they are far more talented at playing than any of the rest of us!).

The show was fun. It's a great story of course, though Owen was predictably uncomfortable with the mother son sexual tension back in 1955. The music wasn't particularly memorable – outside of the diegetic Johnny B. Goode and Power of Love – but the DeLorean looked great and Noa in particular thought the show lived up to expectations. Now we just need a family movie night to see the original!

A Tale of Two Cornfests

Every year we go to Iowa for two weeks during the summer to visit family, swim in the pond, and eat a lot of sweet corn. This year was going to be a little different as Allen had to spend most of our first week in Richland, WA for work. But still, the plan was afternoons at the pond swimming, eating sweet corn, and hanging out with family.

And we did get to do that last one, just not necessarily in the way we planned. Having spent the previous summer finding mom a new doctor only to have her fail to make any follow-up appointments and observing that she wasn't looking well, I spent a few hours after we arrived talking to her health plan an eventually getting her doctor to squeeze her in for an appointment (and to finally take care of some of the lab worked she skipped), only to be sent almost immediately to the ER once they finally drew her blood so that she could get an emergency transfusion and be admitted to the hospital.

Mom was less than thrilled with the development while Dad was just confused as to what was going on. Fortunately, Owen now has his provisional driver's license and so he and Noa could at least get a little pond time in while I spent my days at the hospital and Allen was still in Richland. Allen made it home. We cancelled a visit from Blaine. Steve decided to come out a little earlier and without Erin and Sam in order to be there for a procedure to try and figure out why mom get losing blood. We cancelled a trip to Marshalltown to see Ellen, Bernie, Pete and Jeannine. 

In the end Allen and the kids were still able to make corn fest (Allen came in third in the sweet corn eating contest behind Ethan and Simon). I made a twenty minute appearance to say hi and pick-up Noa (they weren't up for all the late night fun that Allen and Owen were). Mom was eventually discharged from the hospital four days after she was admitted – looking and feeling a lot better – and willingly agreed to take her medicine, use a cane and even have a follow-up visit with her doctor. We got a few days of family pond time in and even picked some sweet corn so Mom and Dad could enjoy it as well. And while Dad is disappointed that Mom's been barred from drinking wine, he's excited to have her home (and I think a bit relieved that I was heading out and wouldn't be there to boss them around so much).

Though Dave is coming out for Dad's next medical appointment later this week...

(To see all of our Iowa pictures, click here.)