Here's a Thought: Mom and Her Four Kids All Attend College Together!

Kat invited me to go with her this afternoon to the local community college where she'll be taking pre-nursing classes in the Fall. Yeah, I know that the invitation might have had something to do with me being the keeper of the money, but since she now has independent access to funds for one year of school, I'm choosing to believe that she wanted me there for more than writing a check.

The English and math assessment tests (which she aced, by the way!) took about an hour and a half, during which time I walked around campus and read just about every catalog and pamphlet on every wall and in every corridor. At one point I decided to sit down with the catalog of classes and explore the courses being offered. I was completely drawn in and couldn't help but ponder the possibilities.

Elementary education. I have a masters degree in education now, but I can't teach in a public school without a credential, so maybe I could get a credential! I would love, love, love to teach first or second grade. Or, hell, even 10th grade English. Anything but 8th grade math! I come from a families of teachers and I did teach for a while, but then I veered into educational media production -- which I've loved, but it does lack direct interaction with kids.

Pre-nursing. I have always wanted to be a nurse mid-wife and can't let go of that dream. It just always seems to be with me. Becoming a certified childbirth instructor and doula ten years ago was a small step toward my dream, but the timing was wrong then, since I had four young children at home. Now, with no more kids at home, I could have the flexibility to follow this passion... couldn't I?

Movie making. I loved being the Executive Producer of FUEL and CHILL, but I managed the process instead of getting onto the thick of things. I would LOVE to be able to produce, direct, and edit films and videos -- especially videos that can inspire teens and youth change the world!

Diagnostic Ultrasound. Preferably in an obstetrics clinic! Can you imagine sharing in the joy of introducing parents to their babies? OK, maybe this would get boring after a while (and there'd be occasional heartbreak in it too), and it likely doesn't pay all that well -- but for some reason it still inspires me.

Leadership. There's a bona fide leadership program! This is more a general knack than a passion, but how cool would those classes be?

And of course, Project Management -- which is what I do now and what I've done for 25 years. I don't have all kinds of certificates in Project Management (PIM, CAPM), but I have all kinds of experience. Hell, maybe I can teach those classes!

I was so taken by all the possibilities that I even looked into evening and online classes (because I know one thing for sure -- I can't quit my job!) and asked the guy at the assessment office whether college classes I took 30 years ago can be considered in lieu of testing (because, as I told Kat, the last math class I took was... geology!) -- and in many cases they can!

As crazy as the whole idea seems, there's some sanity and peace to it all. It would take me at least four or five years (or more, since it'd have to be done on a very part-time schedule) and by that time we won't have the financial responsibilities that we have now so I could conceivably finally pursue a new passion and go down a new road.

Can you imagine becoming a midwife at 56 or 60? Yeah, I'd be old, but I'll be that old in that many years even if I do nothing at all, so why not spend some time doing something for myself and my own intellectual and professional (and emotional), now that I finally can?

Couldn't help but notice...

Eight hours: time spent shopping with Kat for stuff she'll need when she moves out to live on her own and go to school: coordinating bedding, fun wall mirrors, smelly candles and other trinkets, patterned storage bins, color coordinated bathroom accessories, etc.


Twelve minutes: time spent shopping with Aleks for stuff he'll need when he moves out to live on his own and go to school: Two plain towels, a laundry hamper, shampoo, body wash, a toothbrush and toothpaste. (And that was about eight minutes more than he wanted to spend... his main interest was in selecting the right combination of manly toiletry smells!)

Dating an Olympian: The Pride and the Heartache

Many of us remember the first person who broke our heart, but I wonder how many people have to watch that person become an overnight Olympic champion just a year later.

When John Naber won his four gold medals and set six world records at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, I was just barely getting over the heartache of him breaking up with me. Watching him on the medal stand, soaking up the world's sudden love affair with him, part of me wanted to boast "Hey, it's my ex-boyfriend!" and part of me just wanted to cry, remembering how completely wrapped up in him I was for a year and how much it hurt when he told me that he thought we should just be friends because his life was "complicated."

I met John through my best friend in high school, who swam with him at Ladera Oaks Aquatic Club in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was the summer before his freshman year at USC and my junior year in high school. We'd become fast friends that summer and it didn't take long for me to fall in love with John. He was everyone's friend, generous of spirit, and not at all caught up in his developing celebrity. Looking back now, I'm sure that some of his appeal was his developing celebrity, but I also know that I'd never had such deep discussions with a man before about things that really mattered: love, life, religion, and friendship. And I'd never felt so comfortable in a man's arms before. I'd had boyfriends before John, but our relationship felt more mature than my previous relationships, making me feel that I was dating a man, whereas my other relationships had been with teen guys -- probably because John was the first person I'd dated who made me feel... well, not like a grrrrrrl.

I thought my heart would break when John left for college, but we stayed cloesly in touch and when he came home for Christmas, I fell even more in love with him, sure that we'd be together for a while. Our song was "Time in a Bottle" because it seemed that we'd have plenty of it once things eased up for him, since his quest to be an Olympian had pretty much taken over his life. We even joked that I'd be his "towel holder" at the Montreal Olympics the following year -- and I believed it.

When John came home in May, a year after we'd met and become fast friends, he gently told me that he thought it best that we not have an exclusive relationship. He was breaking up with me and I remember it feeling like a knife in my heart. Looking back now, I realize that I what I felt for John was probably more infatuation and admiration than love, but you'd never have been able to tell me that then.

I remembering driving home in a daze, running into the bathroom and sobbing for hours, filling the tub over and over again, letting out just enough water to allow me to keep fill the tub again so my family couldn't hear my deep, tortured sobs. My heart was breaking and to this day I can say that I'm not sure it ever felt so broken since, even though relationships have certainly broken up since then.

The last time I saw John was in the early 1980's, after I'd graduated from college and grad school and had just begun my first career job at Disney. Tom and I had recently moved in together and as we enjoyed a "business lunch" together that day, the always upstanding, always moral John made it very clear, in an almost fatherly way, that he disapproved of my "living in sin" arrangement. I remember it bothering me that I'd disappointed John, even then, but I'd gotten past the heartbreak at that point and regarded his disapproval as almost a compliment because it said that he still cared about me, even years after our romantic relationship had ended.

John and I are still in touch, mostly just through the occasional holiday letter and occasional "how ya doin'?" e-mails. And once in a great while I see him commentating some obscure sports show on TV and then I do yell out proudly, like the 17-year-old cheerleader I was back then, "Hey -- that's my ex-boyfriend!" I'm not sure he knows, even now, how completely smitten I was with him back then, but a girl never forget the first man who broke her heart; I'm just glad it was broken by a guy whose kindness came in truly Olympic proportions -- then and now.

Four Kids in College: The Financial Stuff

I spend a huge amount of time fretting over how to pay for our kids' college educations. This started six years ago, when Elisabeth headed to Cal as an out-of-state student (which killed me because her dorm was literally a stone's throw from where I grew up). Back then, our attitude was we'll find a way. We even told the kids that they could apply to any school they wanted, and if they were accepted, well -- we'd find a way.

Elisabeth applied to Stanford and can I just say, thank goodness she didn't get in! Unless you're inordinately wealthy, $60,000 per year just doesn't come easy. (I cracked up when I got a letter from Stanford saying, essentially, "sorry 'bout that... but you're still our bestest alum friend and you'll still send us money, riiiiight?")

But even Cal was crazy expensive, since we paid out-of-state tuition. And the cost of Elisabeth's education, from when she started in 2002 to when she graduated in 2206, almost DOUBLED -- to 40+K per year! Believe me, there were many sleepless nights. (Fortunately, Elisabeth took out massive loans -- and really fortunately she's already paid them all off!)

So now we have three kids starting college in the fall. No wait -- FOUR. Elisabeth is starting school too -- graduate school -- but our rule is that we will assist with undergrad education, but graduate school is up the kids themselves.

As you can imagine, there are still (again) many sleepless nights because even though we pretty much limited them to in-state schools (unless they wanted to incur the extra cost themselves), two of those schools will cost over $20,000 per year. Ouch.

With me being unemployed during most of last year and Tom having switched careers a few years ago and taking a huge pay cut in the process, and with three dependent kids going to college, you'd think that we'd have gotten massive financial aid, wouldn't you? But can you believe it, not one of the kids got a PENNY in federal financial aid! Not one cent. I was absolutely floored and hugely disappointed. They got offers of small student loans through the universities themselves, but not one penny of federal financial aid for middle class a family with three kids in college. Something's wrong, don'tcha think?

Like a lot of well-meaning parents, we set up college accounts years ago for the kids when they were little. We didn't add to them on a regular basis through payroll deduction or regular contributions because frankly, we couldn't afford to. But we did contribute to them on quite a few sporadic occasions when we came into money, leaving each of the kids with a little over 20K in his/her college account. Believe me, it felt like a lot for many years while we were relatively oblivious to the sky-rocketing cost of college. Of course now we realize that it's barely enough for one year at a state school!

My choice now is to panic consistently (which I've done) or to take things one year at a time, which is hard because I know what's coming, but is really the only choice right now. Next year is taken care of for all the kids because that's how long it will probably take for them to blow through the money in their accounts. Except Kat, who is wisely going to a community college but living near a university. Her first two years of tuition, like Peter's first two years, will be substantially less than Aleks' at UW or Elisabeth's at UC Berkeley. The upside to that for Kat and Peter is that they'll owe less money in student loans upon graduation.

We always assumed that the kids could take out student loans, but with the financial crisis hitting lending institutions so hard these days, that looks like it's not a likelihood unless we co-sign, which our financial adviser has suggested we DON'T do "times three." And there's always home equity loans, but how scary is that?! Apparently lots of parents are opting for that route though; when I was at the bank last week shuffling college accounts from the 529 savings to the more liquid checking accounts, the loan officer told me that they're being inundated this month with panicky parents who are taking out fast home equity loans. As much as that option makes me cringe, it might be what we find ourselves doing a year from now.

And of course there's the "just grin and bear it" approach, in which we basically pay at least twice as much per month for college expenses as we pay on our mortgage. That approach requires us to forgo dinners out, entertainment, trips, etc., and live totally on the cheap, putting our monthly incomes only toward our kids' college educations -- which I might be happy to do if they, themselves had already tried and exhausted all avenues themselves.

Which brings us to scholarships. Oh man, don't get me started! Getting the kids to apply for scholarships has been as hard as getting them to floss or clean their rooms or, heaven forbid, hang up their towels! No, harder! They truly believe that they won't get a penny in scholarships because they're not members of specific groups like the Arabian Welders Association or Children of Icelandic Gypsies, so they don't even try. It kills me and is a source of great turmoil and pissiness on my part. Because all the available scholarships -- I repeat for my kids' sake: all the available scholarships! -- can be overwhelming, I have everything come in to my in-box and I send appropriate scholarship announcements onto the appropriate kid. Nursing scholarships to Kat, International Relations scholarships to Aleks... But have they applied for any? Noooooo! OK, maybe one. But it's pulling teeth to get them to apply for more. Yes, I've made it clear that the more "free" money they can find now, the less money they have to pay back later in loans. But I swear, they're not wrapping their heads around that; they just don't get it.

My heart races and my palms sweat just thinking about scholarships and why they're not applying for more of them, so I can't talk about that anymore. And yes, advice is welcome on that front, but I feel like I've tried everything, including incentives ("we'll give you 20% of any scholarships you get") and consequences ("we won't co-sign for loans, so you better get scholarships"). So far nothing has worked.

I really think there's a general inability for college-age kids (and not just ours) to wrap their heads around what it take financially to get through college for middle class Americans. If we were really poor or really rich, none of this would be an issue.

So right now I'm trying to spend more time being excited about our kids' new independence and less time fretting about how their college educations will be paid for. Chances are, we will be looking at a large home equity loan next year. And chances are that Aleks, especially, will need to take a year out and work to pay for his last two years -- something he definitely can't even fathom right now, when all he's thinking about is rush week at his new frat and the excitement of his classes.

My only option now is to take this whole adventure a day, month, and year at a time and to have confidence that one thing we did instill in our kids is the importance and the value of a college education and to believe that achieving that goal is something that they care about enough to make it happen, with our help or without it.

They're Dropping Like... College Students!

Kat signed a lease tonight. On September 1st, she'll be moving into a townhouse near UW with three other (really nice) room mates. This has been a few weeks in the making, but with Peter moving out -- well, I can only deal with one coop-fleeing kid at a time.

Sigh.
But really, I can't help but be excited for Kat. Her house mates, all of whom she met in the past few weeks through her quest for the right place to live and the right people to live with, are amazingly nice and I have a feeling Kat will really spread her wings there, making new friends, living independently (but within a few miles of both Aleks at the frat and Elisabeth in Wallingford), and "coming into her own."

This weekend we'll be going to Ikea to buy some furniture, bedding and all the fun things that one gets when she has a place of her own. Was it really almost two years ago that we did this with Elisabeth?!

So I'm gonna stop whining -- at least for tonight -- and be thrilled for my kids, their new independence, and the very distict beginning of their independent adult lives. No promises about how I'll feel tomorrow, but for tonight, that's my approach.

Be free, my children! Fly safely and be well. And come home every Sunday for dinner, ya hear?!

So This is the Way It's Gonna Be, Is It?

I came home to an empty house today -- a veritable black hole of an empty house! Aleks and Kat and a bunch of friends headed to the Seattle Arboretum because it's a beautiful summer afternoon in Seattle and what better place to be on a day like today than the Arboretum?! Peter's... well, we all know where Peter is. And Elisabeth has had her own place for two years now, so I don't expect her to be home for dinner.

I guess I better get used to coming home to a quiet, empty house. There was a time in my life when I longed for some peace and quiet and I thought the day would never come that it'd be the norm.

Yet here it is. It's a bit unnerving because it's such a dramatic and sudden change but, as people remind me constantly, it's not like they're all abandoning us... they'll be home with their laundry baskets and growling tummies all the time! I have a feeling they will.

The thing is, they haven't even all moved out yet... and listen to me whine! On Wednesday we'll probably sign papers for Kat to rent a room in a townhouse near UW with very nice couple who she already spent some time with and a professional photographer (all under 23) who she hasn't met yet. She'll live there and take the bus to the local community college where she'll get some nursing prerequisites out of the way. That rental agreement starts on September 1st.

Then Aleks will move into Theta Chi, the UW fraternity to which he's pledged, on September 15th. And on September 16th I'll try to resist the urge to go into all three empty rooms and turn them into guest and sewing and scrapbooking rooms. My mom did that when I went to college and it had a huge, negative impact on me.

Nope, these guys need to clean their rooms and make them guest-ready -- but I WON'T take over and claim those rooms back. That would be cruel!

And as of October 1st, I will plan to make Sunday dinner weekly. Whoever shows up gets fed!

Humor me, my friends. For a few weeks (or months), I just might need to blab about all this sudden nest emptying. Thanks in advance.

From Eastern to Western Washington: A Geography Lesson

Here are a few of the hundreds of photos I took as we drove home from Pullman this afternoon. When many people think of the Pacific Northwest, they think of lush evergreen trees, tall jagged mountains and a lot of water. But Washington has a variety of geographical regions, as you can see from this east-to-west sampling:

August Adventures in Pullman (Because I Refuse to Call this Post Anything like "Saying Good-bye to Peter and Danelle")

After our dramatic ride to Pullman yesterday, we met up with Tom, Peter, Danelle, and Danelle's parents, grandparerts and uncle, who had left home hours earlier than we had -- Tom and Peter in the moving van, and everyone else in a caravan of cars. Good thing Tom and Peter missed the storm; that wouldn't have been pretty in the tall moving van!

Peter and Danelle have been together for four years now and have lived together most of that time -- but never in their own place. Danelle's family lives just a few blocks from us and they've had the same attitude as us: encourage them to concentrate on school and work, and allow them to live together without having to worry about rent. So they've had a room at Danelle's house and have spent lots of time at our house. But they've never had a place of their own -- until now.

This weekend Peter and Danelle officially began living in sin -- something Tom and I wholeheartedly encourage for a loving, committed couple who've been together for four years. They have a large 2 bedroom, 2 bath place close to campus and all 12 of us have come out to help them move boxes, assemble Ikea furniture (which will take all weekend!), and settle in.

Danelle and Peter would like to welcome you to their new home.

"C'mon in! ...Now get to work!" (Not really -- they'd never say that.)

Aleks knew there'd be lots of work to do, so he gathered strength during a morning nap. OK -- the morning nap part is true; the work part isn't! Aleks prefers mental work to physical work...
Tom started in on assembling the desk while Peter and Aleks encourage him wholeheartedly.

Kat put together a lamp...

...and then started in on the dresser!

Danelle assembled her new vacuum cleaner. Is there anything more exciting? (Hey, I totally relate to her "playing house" enthusiasm; I felt exactly the same way 26 years ago, when Tom and I first moved in together!)

Two Alexs. On the left is Danelle's grandfather and on the right... well, you know him!

And this is Danelle, her mom, and her grandmother. What great women -- all three of them!

Peter and Kat... brother and sister. Great buddies. He's so protective of her, which is really sweet.

When we finished unpacking boxes, we decided to take a look around the town and the Washington State University campus. This is the Theta Chi fraternity house. Aleks is a member of University of Washington's chapter of Theta Chi.

Doesn't the back of the fraternity house look like it belongs in some movie?

Checking out the stadium...
And the bell tower...
Are you wondering where Elisabeth is? We are too! (Not really -- she's home in Seattle, living her busy life... and pet-sitting for us.)

The buildings on campus are really pretty. Here's another one that looks like it belongs in a movie. (The witch lives in that tower, don'tcha think?)
One little bunny decided to pose for Kat...
Cute, eh? Good thing Boo's not here...


Peter calls Danelle to coordinate where to meet for dinner.
Super Tom! What a goofball!
Can you see the Pallouse in the background? The wheat fields just go on and on for miles...

Peter, Danelle and families thank you for your visit. (This is their guestroom.) Goodbye from WAZZU!