Avoiding being seen with your parents
Sometime while being a teenager all children, I mean young adults, avoid being seen in public with their parents. It starts before they are able to drive with subtle hints that they want to be dropped off at school or the mall. It mortifies them if you offer to go into any public place with them. After they learn to drive and you fork out the cash for a car they truly have their freedom. Now they can be more sophisticated in avoiding us by just being gone in their car.
My kids, I mean young adults, have taken it a step further by fleeing the country. Several thousand miles is about the right distance to remember the good things about your parents but alas you are too far away to express your true feelings.
Attached is a clever disguise Sarah wore last time she was home in case she had to be out in public with us.
I used to say when they were in town that we were the entertainment of last resort. We were called on to feed them only when all their other plans fell through. I had to keep them on a small cash allowance just so they would have a reason to come see us. We are truly parents left behind.
Trying to clean up our house is too much effort
so we go to Cayman to discuss our problems
at Stingray City. Mom turns upside down with joy and gets to hang out with some good looking guys while she communicates with a stingray.
Unfortunately the stingrays biggest problem is how to get all these tourists to turn over all their squid.
Its tough at the beach. We lay on the beach,
we get in the water and after 4 times of doing this we go to the refrigerator. Too bad it has to end and we have to go back to reality.
This is a prayer card I put together for Sarah. Not bad for someone who has no talent.
Here are our three darlings
Here are the three darlings who are world travelers. We are now empty nesters and after a short period of grief are enjoying ourselves.
Parents Left Behind
We are the parents left behind. Our children have grown up and all three of them have moved out. They only come back when its convenient. We refer to ourselves as the entertainment of last resort for our kids. Jo is with us for a few months now studying for her Boards but then in mid-August she is off for a year.
Eva lives in Spain and Sarah is in Thailand for the summer. They left their rooms and our attic full of their memories, so full that you can't even get into their rooms. Its left up to us to clean it up.
The best way to clean it up would be to pull a dumpster up to the house and throw everything out the attic window but that would be destroying childhood memories. Several years ago we had mice get in the attic and I had to trap them and clean up the mess. Some of the childhood memories were not worth cleaning so I threw them out. I was accused of throwing out their childhood.
I should not have worried they were able to fill the place up again with more memories so I can't even remember what I threw away.
In any event I try to spend more time at the beach not thinking about all the work that I have at home. We are parents left behind
