Homeschool College Expectation vs Reality

Your boy (O&O) has jokes, but launching him to college has probably been one of our most challenging seasons as parents.

We had full confidence in his academic abilities, sense of responsibility and social skills but we felt so many conflicting emotions in watching him spread his wings.

Bottom line is that we really enjoy his presence.

I have spent so many years asking O&O to turn his music down, and to stop drumming his beats on my walls. Those crooked paintings and wall hangings were such a big deal to me at the time. Can I tell you that I missed all of that?

The differences don't stop there. Every family member has a role to play and when one member shifts, we all shift and renegotiate our roles. Change is necessary and we adapt, but a certain level of grieving is inevitable. Interestingly, O&O didn't need to go very far for the change to be felt. Though his college campus is relatively close, by not being in our home functioning in his familiar role we have become a new Mocha Family. We're thrilled for him, we miss him and will forever treasure the memories we've made homeschooling him.

Comments

Please leave that baby's hair alone!

I'll never forget the first time I saw Mocha Girl One (HmG) . She was an emergency c-section, and had to spend several days in NICU. She was born four days past her estimated due date and looked huge in her incubator. I imagined her to be especially delicate and feminine. I couldn't wait to frill her up, and more importantly to do her hair ! The only reason she wasn't sporting a barrette the day we took her home from the hospital, was because the one I brought to match her lacey outfit, slid right out. Mocha Girl One's baby hair was silky straight and fine. As the weeks rolled by, it became wavier until she had a lovely curly fro. I washed it all the time . I brushed it several times a day . I tried snap clips, and moved to velcro barrets when the clips slid out. I bought a different head band for every outfit. Meanwhile her curls continued to wind tighter and tighter. I kept everything in a pretty box, dubbed the hair bin . I was really frustrated at not b...

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My hair on the day I put in my Braidlocks before the shrinkage set in. I considered making another video, but opted to return to my first love--writing. I've been reflecting on the many responses I've received on my Hot Topic: The Tangle Teezer is Breaking my Hair video. I've been wondering if there's a little more to my success story. There was a time my daughters' hair remained the same length year after year. I thought their hair wasn't growing or had reached terminal length--meaning their hair had grown as long as it could possibly grow. It never occurred to me that their hair was breaking off at the ends as quickly as it was growing in from the roots. Culturally, as people of African descent, we do many things to our hair that's death to our ends. I never set out to retain length. Something changed in me during a completely unrelated experience. I talk about it in detail in my post Her mother needs to do her...

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