The University of Miami has each year a Family Weekend for the incoming freshmen and the transfer students to get the families together at the campus after more than a full month of school, primarily, I think to alleviate any lingering doubts or concerns the parents may be having over their children adapting to their new home away from home. We had always planned for my hubby to go alone because I had already been, but at the very last minute his ticket still hadn’t been booked yet. We can never book anything in advance because with his position within his company, he all too often has to cancel. Once he was all set to go, I was looking online and there were some incredible specials available. If you can do it, waiting until the very last minute can save quite a bit of money. My hubby became very excited when I threw out the idea that perhaps I can go as well. I had never booked a flight blind before, basically you give the dates that you need and you are guaranteed to fly between the hours of 6 a.m and 10 p.m, arriving the same day and you aren’t flying standby, you definitely have a seat on the plane. You just don’t know which airline, how many stops and at what specific time you are leaving or coming back. It’s an adventure and in our case, it wasn’t bad. Delta is our airline, we have one stop each way, Detroit, and we left very early and are arriving very late, so not too bad for pretty cheap.
When the baby girl found out that she was getting both of her parents, she was really happy, so here we are and we are definitely happy to see her. I am especially happy to see her so bubbly and relaxed, I have been very worried about her since I had left her at the end of August. In the beginning having her call home all homesick was nerve wracking because all you want to do as a parent is to fix it and make it better, but she was down in Miami so all that I could do was try to say the right things and that more often than not doesn’t work for homesickness. After that, was the difficulty of the classes and how Miami was so different from her old school, that was difficult as well, trying from long distance to give her the positive reinforcement and emotional support from so far away.
So when we both saw her smiling and laughing and having her take us around the campus, giving us our own private tour of her personal experience at Miami made us both proud. She told us both that she now loves it and she feels comfortable in her classes and with her small circle of friends. We both feel infinitely better and we are having a great time with her.
At first I thought the Family Weekend was a bit too soon, but after having spent four solid weeks giving the baby girl various pep talks, I can see why the Weekend was devised because it probably takes everyone about a month to figure it out and the University wants the parents to see that even if the beginning weeks were tough, their child does eventually get it and will flourish.
laurieanichols 