The Last Three Months Before College, Part 1: What we did right.

Feb 5, 2013 by Jim and Jerolyn Bogear

Now that our last child has been gone to college for 4 months, I want to stop and take a look at the last 3 months we had with her at home. Did we prepare her for moving 2300 miles away from home? What did we do well, and what could we have done better? I’ll start with what we did right since that always makes me feel better about what I did poorly.

We truly focused a lot of our time on Gabby throughout the entire summer spending as much time with her as we could. After all, we had been through this two times before. Twice we had sent our precious children off to their freshman year of college only to have them come home for one more summer before marrying and moving away permanently. We weren’t going to waste our last concentrated days with our 3^rd. Who knows what will happen over the next couple of years. Due to internships, softball, or jobs she may not even be home for the summer. So we made the most of our time.

What did we do? Traveled — a lot! Gabby is a fastpitch softball player. For 12 years we had taxied her from field to field toting our portable chairs and rolling ice chest. Jim had spent hours sitting on a bucket catching her pitches. I had painstakingly labored over sandwiches and chopped fruit for our lunches. Softball was a huge part of our lives and we loved it. We certainly weren’t going to miss out on one minute of the last summer of travel ball. Along with local showcases, we traveled from Las Vegas, Nevada to Denver, Colorado culminating with Nationals at the home of softball, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. What a whirlwind summer of fun, friendships, and supporting our baby in something she truly loves doing.

Of course we did many other things besides softball – movies, shopping for school, hunting down the best hamburger in Sacramento, or just sitting at home having a dinner together filled with good food and great conversation peppered with lots of laughter. We created the experience to make a memory, and we wouldn’t trade those months with Gabby for anything.

• How are you doing in enjoying your children while they are home?
• What can you do better to cherish the time?
• If your children are gone from your home, what are your favorite memories of your time with them?
• What new “memories” do you still want to make?

Since I’ve used up all my space, I will focus on what I could have done better in a future blog. For now, I’ll just cherish the memories.

~Jerolyn