Coming home, or as Lily calls it--"Home without Jack"

The rest of the weekend was equally amazing--the orientation session at the residence hall relieved any fears I could ever have had about leaving my child so far away--the advisers/rectors in the hall were so reassuring that "we have your sons covered."   Everything from driving them out to Target to dealing with medical emergencies.   Definitely reassuring.

We did meet Jack for lunch, then went over to sessions at the schools Jack is interested in--Engineering and Business.   Funny thing about Notre Dame that if I were in charge I would change--no maps or "this is where you are" signs on campus, and the halls/school buildings all looks the same, so it is really hard to find things.    We eventually got there.   I was so happy to see that the Mendoza school of Business, which is what he now thinks he wants to major in, was voted #1 in the country for undergraduate programs--higher than Wharton, which is the one we always hear about, coming from Philadelphia!

After the end of the open house sessions, we ate dinner with Jack in the South Dining Hall, which looks exactly like Hogwarts, and has an amazing selection of food--my younger kids were so happy!! We headed back towards Jack's dorm  around 7:30, because he had an 8 pm. Orientation session.    We were driving all the way home on Sunday, which is a 12-hour drive, so instead of hanging around, with little chance of seeing Jack super early on Sunday morning before he headed of to do another orientation session,  Chris and I decided to leave early on Sunday morning, which meant it was time to say goodbye to Jack before he left for his session on Saturday night--for the last time.   Chris was really sad, but honestly, I am just way too happy to be sad.    There was the slightest feeling of desertion when he walked into the dorm, but I know he is safe, secure, at a great place, and we all have cell phones and can text if we need to--how sad can you be?


A little later, however, Chris and I were dividing up with the remaining four kids to go someplace, and he said he had the girls, and I should take the boys, and I started counting kids, like I have done unconsciously for the last 19 years, and I only counted to 4--then I realized Jack wasn't with us--that was weird!