2 week countdown!

proudmom17

5-Year Member
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Mar 8, 2013
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I Day is in 2 weeks, I am normally not so anxious when it comes to my kids. But this seems so different, and odd! I do not want to voice my anxiety here at home! I have sent 2 older siblings of my soon-to-be plebe off to colleges, but its a different ballgame at USNA! June 27th can't come soon enough...
 
Proudmom...

I know your feelings. Joy, Pride, Emotions galore. Wait until that night before I day. You will have an overdose of it all. So proud yet so concerned, is it what they really want? Will they be safe? Will the academics be too tough? Will plebe summer be too much? When will I see him/her again?

Your worries are natural and unnecessary. If you send your kid on I day with nothing but the clothes on their back they'll do just fine. The academy is pretty darn good at helping them grow up.

Enjoy these last 2 weeks, and don't wish them away... these are the good old days!
 
Here's a sobering thought. Your plebe (and all the plebes) will never live in your house again in any meaningful way. Once you drop them off at Alumni Hall and they walk through those doors for processing - the most they will ever be is a temporary visitor in your home.

They come home for a few weeks in the summer and it may seem like old times. But it will come to an abrupt end and they'll have to go back to the academy. They'll get some "basket leave" (30 days) after graduation, but then they'll have to start their naval career and you'll see even less of them than you did when they were a midshipman. There will be deployments.

You'll even discover that there will be a few leave periods while they're at the academy when they will choose not to come home. They may go skiing with their mid-friends. They may go camping - canoeing - a trip to Europe - or hangout in Montego Bay for spring break.

You will become less important while their friends become more important.

Did you really expect it would be any other way?

OK - so I'm not a very good motivational speaker. :smile:
 
Get used to it. Our DD graduated a few years ago and is currently facing deployment with her Sqdn.
 
Agree. When she left for Quantico a few weeks ago our 1/C told her Grandma she'd be back at Thanksgiving at the soonest. :eek:
 
Memphis

"Temporary Children" after I Day:thumb: It was Costa Rica for her Mid group. Paris Island was nice when I visited.
 
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I think it was about a year ago that we left for the east coast, taking one last family vacation before I-day. Our daughter is now on her own in another state. The posters are right, they never come back to your house as a kid. (Of course they are always your children.)

With cell phones, however, it is almost like they never left, after Plebe Summer's 3 phone calls that is. (Summer cruise is a lot like Plebe Summer - hardly any contact.) We don't hear from him all the time, but fairly often. Oovoo, Snapchat, Facetime and other apps help as well. I'll even have running real time text conversations with him watching college football games, including Army-Navy. Our thing was always to get up early (west coast) and watch College Gameday, and a couple of games if he wasn't playing that day. So even though we are 2,900 miles apart we still do some of that as his time allows. The night before Winter Sea Trials, we watched his former high school team win a sectional title on TV together. It was pretty cool. (I had no idea he had to get up in three hours for Sea Trials.)

I do have one piece of I-day advice for parents. Have some Imodium with you. Not sure if was Cantler's or nerves or whatever, but I wound up hunting for the one store open until midnight out on Riva Road or wherever on I-day -6 hours.
 
I Day is in 2 weeks, I am normally not so anxious when it comes to my kids. But this seems so different, and odd! I do not want to voice my anxiety here at home! I have sent 2 older siblings of my soon-to-be plebe off to colleges, but its a different ballgame at USNA! June 27th can't come soon enough...

ProudMom,

So very true and so very different than sending his sister off to college. USMA R-Day is just 16 days off and it will come faster than I imaginable - faster still since I am traveling for work four days next week.

And as Memphis, I've known that since last year but it really hit home when the BFE arrived in February. It is hard to describe to others who think of this as just sending them off to college. :frown:
 
my DD called the credit union and she got a kick out of the lady who called her "Midshipman +last name" this was her first time hearing this! - getting excited!!!
 
are our kids supposed to do something with their Credit Union Accounts before I Day?

Probably not mandatory, but DD talked with them last week and the very helpful rep said she should make a minor deposit ($5 will do) to clear the path for the first direct deposit.
 
I Day is in 2 weeks, I am normally not so anxious when it comes to my kids. But this seems so different, and odd! I do not want to voice my anxiety here at home! I have sent 2 older siblings of my soon-to-be plebe off to colleges, but its a different ballgame at USNA! June 27th can't come soon enough...

YES!! - To finally remove the 'bubble rap' and see him off will be a boat load of emotions. the anxiety for the day to finally come is an emotion only an Academy Parent can understand..

Remembering his final walk through the house and as he sat on his bed for what may of seemed to him as the final time.. That was tuff :(
Not to mention the drive to airport. :frown::smile:
looking back now they were precious moments ..

Agreed:
Youngest boy leaving to 'regular' college this fall.. it will be emotionally tuff But yes- its definatly a different ballgame.

Congradulations, Good luck and God Speed

God Bless the USA!!!
 
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