I Bought A Set Of Dishes For Katie
I stopped at Target the other day to pick up a few things I needed and while I was there I thought I would look at crock pots to see the sizes available and see how heavy the smaller ones were. I was thinking about buying one for my Mom. As I walked down the aisle I saw that they had a set of dishes that Katie likes that we were waiting to get when they went on sale. The dishes were on clearance for $13.98 and I couldn’t pass them up, they were the last set and I snatched them right up.
When I brought them home I started thinking of what buying that set of dishes means for me. Katie just graduated college and she already has her teaching job lined up and now she is trying thinking about all of the items that she needs to purchase for her first apartment. This set of dishes reminded me how soon she will be moving out.
I am not unfamiliar to having her move out, she did live in the dorms her first few years of college. The first year was very difficult for me. Katie is my companion, my partner in crime and my up for anything girl as long as she is home by 2 p.m. on Saturday so she can have the rest of the day to relax and to prepare for her job on Sunday. She loves movies and I alway have a movie buddy as long as I am paying. She loves to shop for clothes, makeup and even groceries. She is the first one to say, for example, “Mom Jessica Jones starts soon, looks like we need to binge watch it on Netflix”. She looks forward to watching sappy Christmas movies on the Hallmark Channel with me. And she is always ready to go out to eat, doesn’t matter if it is breakfast, lunch or dinner.
My husband and son are very quiet men and even though they are pretty different, they both absolutely hate going to the movies, The Hallmark Channel, clothes & make up shopping. They tend to let Katie and I do whatever we want without them unless it has to do with a meal. They will tag along for a meal out.
When Katie moves out she won’t be far, but still it won’t be the same. Even though her apartment will most likely be within 1o or 15 minutes of our home, it won’t be the same. She jokes that she will be here every day so that we can babysit her dog for her while she works, it still won’t be the same.
Even though I joke with her that she should consider moving out sooner, and even though I joke that she is my tornado. I will miss her. She is a wonderful companion. It’s funny that the older she gets we have many of the same mannerisms, the same expressions, the same personality and we laugh at the same jokes. We can be watching a movie and at the same time we both shout out the same thing, or look up at each other and have the same expression on our faces. It is so funny to us both. When she was little she and I couldn’t have been more different except for in looks. But now that she is grown we find that we are so very similiar…
I know that I will have an adjustment time for a little while and then I will be fine. But thinking about it right now all I can think of is all the things that I will be doing without her. Being a Mom is hard, especially when one of your babies is finally ready to start her life.
No matter how sad I may feel at times, I am so happy that she is ready to start her life. It is so exciting to watch her walk through Ikea and say I love this couch, I love this duvet cover, I love these curtains, I love this dining room table, etc…
She is ready to take the next step in life and she is so happy about it. It’s hard to believe she once was that little baby who arrived 2 weeks early and came into the world screaming her head off.
She learned her ABC’s before she was 8 months old by watching Wheel Of Fortune reruns when we lived in Iceland (simply because there really wasn’t anything else on tv) and spoke sentences before she was 1 year old.
She was and is an amazing big sister and she loved her baby brother more than anything else in the entire world.
She loved school from her very first day. She cried when her very first day of preschool ended when her friends told her they would be there tomorrow and she wouldn’t (she was enrolled 3 days a week and the other kids were 5 days a week, we had to sign her up for 5 days because the other kids would be doing things without her), she used to cry when she was sick and had to miss a day, she loved Dr. Who and she absolutely adored Harry Potter (she still loves Harry Potter, she will never outgrow that).
Where does the time go? Now she is a college graduate and this fall will be teaching 9th grade Algebra at the high school that she graduated from.
I will be taking advantage of these next 6 months. I will help her shop for all the items she needs to set up her first apartment. I will try to enjoy every minute even the ones where she is makes me crazy.
