Kaio Goes off to College

  Big day for Kaio today. He's moving into college. Mariano, Nala, and Tori drove down there with him while I'm staying home with the baby. She's in daycare for the day, so it's actually just me here alone. I don't get much alone time, so it's actually kind of nice. Or maybe it would be nice if I wasn't so emotionally spent from the stresses of the moment.

It's hard on me when the kids go out at night because I worry about them, and they've been going out every night this week as a kind of farewell to friends and summer. Plus, the baby wakes up a million times throughout the night, so even when I do sleep, it's not for long.

So here I am, home alone in my quiet solitude and sulk, reading old blog posts and looking at Kaio's baby pictures, just feeling heavy in my sinuses like I'm going to cry if I see anything even slightly sappy, like a Dove commercial or a teenage car insurance ad.

I know that lots of times parents write Facebook posts about their kids with pictures of their dorm room and a baby picture. I'm considering doing that, but I also don't like sharing too much on socials anymore. I know that's ironic, literally writing that in a blog post that is more publicly accessible than my social media accounts. Like, anyone in the world could read this. But I don't think anyone I know does... so it feels more anonymous.

What would I say in my Facebook post?

Oh, Kaio, you've always had a very different brain. You struggle with things that are simple and excel with the complex. Like, you put together a 70,000-piece Millennium Falcon Lego set before learning to read. In first grade, you used to complain about the Ottoman Empire taking over Constantinople and cry about Latin being a dead language, and while the teachers couldn't get you to do basic math or follow two-step instructions in art class.

This made school really hard for you, and you've always had to strain at things that come easily to other kids. You struggled through parts of high school and barely passed some of your classes this year, but you insisted on going for the advanced diploma with a bunch of IB courses, refusing to let anyone label you ND or use learning disabilities as a crutch.

You've been bullied, made to feel stupid by standardized tests, the system, and even by people you thought were friends, and when last year started, you were very depressed. But you climbed out of it and just had the best summer of your life, even reconnecting with a friend from elementary school and our preschool moms group, HMN, which is super cool.

So this epic summer passed, and you feel loved and appreciated, and got in just enough trouble to have some good stories to tell without anything permanent on your record. :)

You have an incredible and unique mind, and I've always known that if you could get through the early academic years, college would be the place where you would really prosper, probably especially in those upper-level courses.

I'm happy for you, finishing high school on a good note like this, with a level of emotional maturity that you've had to pump and flex many times through the ups and downs of senior year. You know how to cook, do laundry, drive manual, lean into challenges, talk through disagreements, and advocate for yourself.

So here you go. The world will be a totally different place in four years. None of us knows where it will be because of AI, so I only told you to focus on studying what you're interested in.

I know there are going to be challenges. Like, you're so dramatic that you'll find things to get upset about, I'm sure. I'm worried about you getting depressed again, and I'm worried about what college is like nowadays with social media. And I'll miss you, so I'm really glad you're only going to be a quick two-hour train ride away.

Yes, that's what I would say.

Okay, I need to get back to work now. Here's some pictures. And also some of the girls during a summer trip to Oregon, which is a whole other thing we did to support Nala.

And last, Kaio fixing our computer with uncle Mike. There was a whole crazy insane thing that happened where we got robbed by some teens and the computer was broken, and had to be recovered and rebuilt. Maybe I'll write about that next.