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Wednesday, May 28, 2008
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OUT OF GIRLS Daughter's graduation prompts lament from mom who will be outnumbered by males at home for the first time since marriage Staff Writer A change is in the wind.
It looms in the future mere months away. They are summer months. Everyone knows they're the shortest. It will come before we know it.
The graduation ceremony at Brainerd High School this week will mark a change in my home. For the first time, in 22 years of marriage, the boys are about to rule. Up until now our home has been populated with more females than males and, frankly, it's been a good fit. Not that my husband and my son aren't good company, but without my girls it just won't be the same.
Ask Terri Tomlinson, Kellie Ericksen and Jane Brink. Their daughters Cassie, Kristi and Emily will throw their mortarboards up along with my daughter, Kirstin, Thursday night and this fall when we deposit our daughters, their bedding, backpacks and small appliances at the curbs of their college dorms they, too, will return to homes where only boys remain.
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Mothers Sheila Helmberger (left), Kellie Ericksen, Jane Brink and Terri Tomlinson try to keep their daughters, Kirstin, Kristi, Emily and Cassie from leaving. The girls will all graduate Thursday night from Brainerd High School. Brainerd Dispatch/Clint Wood
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I'm luckier than the others because last year I had a practice daughter. When her older sister left for college Kirstin bared the brunt of my adjustment period. I might have been a little needy.
"What are you doing? What do you want to do? Should we do something together? We should go for a walk/to the mall/ to a movie. What are you listening to/watching/reading? Where are you going? Can I come?"
What will I do without her?
This time I am out of girls. Girls to outfit for dances, to accompany me on errands, to help me look through magazines for a new haircut. Her input on clothes, shoes and where the waistline of my pants should ride has been invaluable.
As much as Terri, Kellie, Jane and I love our husbands and our sons they lack certain desirable characteristics.
They do not like Kate Hudson movies or those centered around themes involving true love, Cinderellas or musicals. They've never read books by Judy Blume, Jodi Picoult or Nicholas Sparks. They have yet to invite friends over to bake things and puff paint T-shirts, and they are not fans of television series with handsome doctors, model wannabes or contestants vying for assorted titles.
There is something about mothers and their daughters. I know because I still have it with my own mother. A quick phone conversation to relay a single message becomes 30 minutes of chitchat about all kinds of things: Books, recipes, movies, news, her grandchildren, birds, our flowers and the weather. It has never changed. It is a comfortable, lifelong friendship.
Even our sons admit there are certain things they just don't care to do with us.
"Cassie and I like to shop together. That's probably at the top of our list," said Terri. "We like to cook. We watch 'The Office' together. That's a new thing we've started to enjoy. We always take walks together. She makes sure I'm getting my exercise." The Ericksen and Tomlinson mother-daughter teams are big scrapbookers, too. Along with Jane the other moms document all of the important events in our daughters lives in photos while I stand by asking, "Can I get a copy of that?"
"Kristi and I like to shop, especially when I'm buying," said Kellie. "We like playing card and board games. We like to entertain together whether it's a Christmas party or Easter egg hunt. We love to have people over. We take road trips too; especially down to the cities to see family."
"I'm just happy and excited for her," said Jane of Emily's pending graduation. "But I'm sad for me."
Modern technology will help ease the loss of our daughter's company. We can walk through every day of college with them if they will allow and tolerate it.
"Emily and I have free mobile-to-mobile on our cell phones and we can always e-mail," said Jane. "It won't be the same though. The everyday finding out what's going on in her life."
The Tomlinsons have another plan, "I'm going to get an iMac," said Terri. "We already have Cassie's computer for college and it has a Webcam. I'm going to get one so I can see her. We're practicing with an aunt who has one. That will be fun. Then I can get a little, 'Cassie fix.'"
The thing we'll miss most is unanimous. Our daughters' wonderful gift of gab.
"We just talk all the time," said Jane. "That's what I'll miss. When she comes home at night we just hang out ... sit on the couch and talk. I love my son dearly," she said, "but it's, 'How was your day?' 'Fine.' 'Did you learn anything at school?' 'I forgot.' I just have such wonderful conversations with Emily and all of her friends. I remember last summer when Emily was on a trip Kirstin came over to get something and I said, 'Oh ... a girl ... stay. Let's visit!'"
Kirstin has had some of the same girlfriends since the fourth grade and one of my favorite bonuses has been evenings with a counter full of girls around a pan of bars just talking.
"There is a special bond between mother and daughter, you guys know what it is," said Kellie. " My house will not seem complete without her here. Without our girls walking in, throwing their backpacks everywhere, cell phones ringing."
Terri agrees, "They bring such noise and fun into the home. It will be quieter next year. Not that she's a noisy kid, but some life in the house will be gone. We'll still go to hockey and all those things with Joe but home will be quieter."
For Kirstin and I it will mean not being able to walk out of our bedrooms, down the hall and into another world of clothing and jewelry options. We will have to decide who gets custody of the silver earrings we both adore and the pink zip-up (that looks better on her anyway).
So, what will we do with our newly acquired free time?
"Well, after I stop crying on the way home..." said Terri with a laugh.
"For so many years the house has echoed with "What field? What time? Did you MapQuest that one? Is my uniform clean?" said Kellie. "It will be a hard adjustment to make to have her gone. I can only hope that my boys are willing to teach Mom about their Wii and have a little sympathy for me, the only girl in the house for the first time ever."
"I'll have a lot of Tuesdays and Thursdays off without all of her sporting things," said Jane. "Maybe I can do more church stuff, or hey, we could take some fun community education classes."
And we have a new book club.
Last winter while bemoaning the coming changes we started the "Hockey Mom-slash-Book-slash-Movie Club." This fall we plan to add another slash, "Support Group" because the mothers in our group who don't have daughters graduating this year, do next.
"It's just ... you have your child and they're the center of your life for 18 years. It's hard to even imagine. I don't know what it will be like," said Jane.
Everyone will try to fit in a last summer hurrah before the girls head for school. Road trips are in order for most of us.
We'll do other things this summer too: Learn more about Xbox 360, learn which channels are ESPN and Versus, memorize the starting lineup of our guys' favorite sports teams and trade in movies on Lifetime for sports shorts on YouTube. And maybe one more adjustment ... my husband has begun a "Put the Lid Up when You're Done" campaign to celebrate the long-awaited victory for the other side.
Thank heavens for that book club.
"How did we all meet one another anyway?" I asked Kellie on the phone last week.
"Through our girls," she said. Of course. Just one more good thing they've done for us.
Congratulations to the sons and daughters in the Class of 2008!
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