Turning 21 and Other Life Passages

My baby, my special delivery,  turned 21 this week.  He ordered himself a video game.  He asked to go to Friendly's for supper.  He asked me to make him cake and get ice cream. 

That's all of his wants.  At least that's all that I can tell he has, or that he can verbalize.

The kids at school all told him happy birthday.  His FB friends and family wished him well. 

FTD sitting on the shore of Lake Eire, enjoying the solitude.

That's all he needs to be content. 

It seems too little somehow.  While I'm glad he didn't get tanked on his 21st, I'm saddened that he has no friends with whom he just hangs out.  He still has 2 good buddies from his academic high school, but they are both in, or trying to earn the money to be in, college.  They still come over and play Pokemon and Zelda and something else.  They still engage in "parallel play," like toddlers do.  I want so much more for him, yet if he's content, what should I be wanting for him?


We've also discussed the concept of leaving him here this summer (but haven't even made a peep about this to DD, who will blow a cork), instead of dragging him to which ever park I land in.  DH and I discussed the pros and cons, and simply put, there are many more pros to him staying here.  My nephew will live here again, and with a certified waiver option provider hanging with him a couple of days a week, he'll be fine.

But will I? 

All moms know that their kids are going to leave the nest some day.  Okay, we're leaving him in the nest while we boogey, but still.  He doesn't get home from school until 4:30 and by 2:30 or so, I'm really missing him. How will I manage for 4 months?

I will be coming home for my BFF's daughter's wedding in mid-July, so FTD and I will have at least a couple of days together.  And DH will likely stay until Memorial Day, since DD says he wants to hang around until the end of school this year, since it's his "Senior" year and last at the academic HS. He'll attend the vocational HS where FTD currently attends next year, as will FTD, who'll only be there for the first semester, as he will age out next February.  So if this plan goes, I'll be driving to my park, and living alone for nearly a month.  Good news, bad news that.

DH was making squawky noises about how since we leave all summer he doesn't get anything done around here.  Um, he doesn't get much done when we are here, so that's a moot point.  I also cannot imagine ever again spending a summer in the heat and humidity and mosquitoes and ticks of NW Ohio.  When I'm too old and decrepit to stand for the 8 hours my job requires, I'll come home and sit in the air conditioning and look out my windows, but until that day, I'm outta here in the summers.  Folks around here who have never been able to escape in the summers don't realize that there's nice weather to be had in other places. 

Speaking of which, one of the other parks at which I applied isn't hiring any new staff this year.  It's a perfect location for a summer gig (even tho they have black flies).  I'm going to screw up my courage and call the other park to see if I've got any chance up there, too.  The calls are hard to make because I don't want to appear to be pushy, but I really need to know sooner rather than later.  And of course, my back up position is Yellowstone.  How blessed am I that that is the case.

If we do in fact leave FTD here, it opens the potential for a move to Old Faithful, if if if the one and apparently only 2 bedroom apartment is available.  I haven't been in it, but I hear it's smaller than our Madison apartment.  But being at OF means DD can actually get a paying job.  And DH can volunteer pretty much when ever he feels like it. He's not so interested in committing to a schedule, and um, well this is embarrassing, but even tho it's a volunteer job, some volunteers get free or reduced housing out of the deal.  We did in North Dakota and it was fabulous!  He was the Campground Host, so we got to live in the little cabin in return for him working at least 32 hours a week, which was a breeze and he loved it. (We'd so do that again, if the cabin were available.) 

Boy Scout Troop from Toledo raising the Flag at Theodore Roosevelt National Park, Medora, North Dakota.  Our camp tender's cabin.

Our YNP apartment on a beautiful May day.

The housing situation for volunteers in YNP has been interpreted differently, so it seems that his working wouldn't be compensated.  Yeah, we know it's volunteering but the fact that some volunteers 'get paid' and some don't is kinda tricky.

Well, it's after 1 p.m.. Time to make those phone calls.....