I have never done this before. My sister, Catherine, sent me an email with a guest blog. I am going to post it. Maybe I can have guest blogs from time to time. Catherine has five kids. The rest you can figure out as you go. Let me know if you like the idea of the guest blog. She wrote this on Feb. 20 (necessary to know for a weather related comment).

As I walk up stairs to a full 1st floor, which by the way was not so full 3 months ago, I start to wonder what the hell we did wrong. My husband’s office has been turned back into a bedroom for my daughter. She decided after 2 years, 1 semester and 1 month that her CCS program for learning disabled at Kent State University was no longer challenging her and she wanted to leave, now, in the middle of the semester because she couldn’t take it any longer. So there she is sleeping in my husband’s office.

One room over is my middle child who decided that, after one semester of college and swimming, in Tennessee, it was too much and too far away. Now he is home sleeping in a once empty bedroom slated to one day be my happy place. Now it’s full.

Now, I know that it can be done, the going to college and staying there thing. We have successfully, fingers crossed, launched one kid, our oldest, to college. We were so successful, that he came home for one summer between his freshman and sophomore year and we haven’t seen him since. He does come home for small visits but no more than 4 days and then he vanishes again. So, it can be done.

Luckily for us our 2 returnees have come home with a plan. One of them is already attending our local community college and the other, middle of the semester drop out, will be going next fall, part, part time if that is a thing. With her learning disabilities she can only handle one, maybe 2 classes at a time. In the mean time she has her lifeguarding job and she will help me with babysitting.

Let’s not forget about the bedroom across the hall, currently being used by my baby, if you can call him that. My baby stands almost 6 feet tall weighing anyone’s guess. He symbolized my light at the end of the tunnel, a very long tunnel. The life changing moment when you become the “empty nester”. I only had 4 1/2 years left! 4 1/2 years! But now what? I have 2 kids that failed to launch, making that light grow dim, and quite possibly, construction could start up again on that tunnel and make it even longer. Where did we go wrong?

I guess I shouldn’t leave out my daughter who is currently residing in a bedroom on the main floor. She is one year ahead of my baby. As of right now she does not pose any threats of failing to launch. She has big plans and is very driven. Let’s just hope she doesn’t crash that proverbial car.

So I sit in my bed writing this, realizing how late it is and how early I need to get up, praying for a snow day tomorrow. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. Yes, one day I may miss all of this, but we all know it will not be any time soon. I guess you could say the moral of the story is, don’t have 5 kids, however, I love them all, they just need to move out…some day.