Getting Mark ready for school has been really fun. Really. To his credit, he has been quite the trooper, helping me clean out his room and get stuff packed. He has kept me laughing through the whole process.
I think of Mark as a raccoon. In fact, one of his favorite impressions is of a raccoon. If you've read Rascal by Sterling North (an appropriate first name for a favorite author of Mark Sterling Kennedy, don't you think?), Mark loves to reenact Rascal washing his sugar cube in water and watching his disappear before his eyes. Mark even makes the purring noises while doing it.
Mark collects things like raccoons do also, and then he hides them. Not on purpose--they just get pushed to the side.
Too, as raccoons like anything shiny, Mark likes anything soft. How does he rate the softness? By testing it out. Never take him into any "home" department in a store--he just walks down the aisles feeling everything. If he finds something that meets his softness criteria, he will literally pull it out and rub himself all over it :-) Yes, if you're not laughing now, you must be dead.
Well, getting everything ready for school as been a hilarious adventure. Cleaning out Mark's closets and dresser drawers, he would end up putting on clothing that was stuffed in the back of the closet for a reason. Clothing that still fit him in circumference, but was inches too short in length. Think about that a moment. He can still fit into clothing that he wore when we was 10 years old--bean pole, what???
When we found his marching band hat (which should have been returned over two years ago!), he kept it on (with his Michigan t-shirt and pajama pants, no less). Other hats came out too, his favorite being a green knit lizard hat that Glo bought him for Christmas last year. I couldn't help but laugh when I would look over to see him going through some old papers, wearing one of these quirky old finds.
Too, he ended up finding all the soft things that he has collected over the years, and purring when he did so. Every soft thing had to be packed up to come with him to college.
You may ask exactly how he has room to take all of this stuff?
Several months ago (and before Mark had made a final decision about school), he decided he wanted to live with my mother in Ann Arbor. He has travelled extensively to festivals and such, and has lived through three summers of Interlochen. He knew that he didn't want to live in the dorms. At the time, I was opposed to him not living in the dorms, but after hearing his reasoning, and thinking back on Ethan's experience in the dorms, I realized that he was making the most mature decision of all. Through mostly begging her (I think), he convinced her and the deal was done.
Much to Mark's liking, she has no bedrooms that are dorm-sized. Instead, she has large, beautifully-painted bedrooms, one of which has a king-size bed. Mark could see the scope of his idea, being fulfilled within minutes. He could bring EVERYTHING which in all honesty, I think he did.
The funniest thing is that he wanted to bring "Mac". Mac is an extra large, foam-filled bean bag that we bought for Mark several years ago. Seriously, this thing is so big that when we have extra guests over, one of the boys will sleep on it, and it's comfortable, even for their 6'4" frames! Of course, it's super soft, and super mushy, being Mark's bean bag. It's named Mac because it reminds us of a macrophage in that it just swallows one up--although it's green, not red :-)
The question was, how to get it to M-Boo's (the name my kids call my mom)? Through cleverness and a lot of elbow grease, we managed to ball it up into a smaller ball, cover it with garbage bags, tape it closed even more and shove it into the back of Mark's car.
Thankfully, John was coming later in the week with everything else Mark owned, because Mark's car had no back seat or back at all. It was all about Mac.
Too, THREE suitcases full of clothes, mostly very soft, very cuddly things. His rabbit hat, his sheep blanket, his fleece socks. You name it, he brought it. He even brought his huge bin of knitting--I think he's already planning on covering some very naked, very awkward statues on campus :-)
Mark collects things like raccoons do also, and then he hides them. Not on purpose--they just get pushed to the side.
Too, as raccoons like anything shiny, Mark likes anything soft. How does he rate the softness? By testing it out. Never take him into any "home" department in a store--he just walks down the aisles feeling everything. If he finds something that meets his softness criteria, he will literally pull it out and rub himself all over it :-) Yes, if you're not laughing now, you must be dead.
Well, getting everything ready for school as been a hilarious adventure. Cleaning out Mark's closets and dresser drawers, he would end up putting on clothing that was stuffed in the back of the closet for a reason. Clothing that still fit him in circumference, but was inches too short in length. Think about that a moment. He can still fit into clothing that he wore when we was 10 years old--bean pole, what???
When we found his marching band hat (which should have been returned over two years ago!), he kept it on (with his Michigan t-shirt and pajama pants, no less). Other hats came out too, his favorite being a green knit lizard hat that Glo bought him for Christmas last year. I couldn't help but laugh when I would look over to see him going through some old papers, wearing one of these quirky old finds.
Too, he ended up finding all the soft things that he has collected over the years, and purring when he did so. Every soft thing had to be packed up to come with him to college.
You may ask exactly how he has room to take all of this stuff?
Several months ago (and before Mark had made a final decision about school), he decided he wanted to live with my mother in Ann Arbor. He has travelled extensively to festivals and such, and has lived through three summers of Interlochen. He knew that he didn't want to live in the dorms. At the time, I was opposed to him not living in the dorms, but after hearing his reasoning, and thinking back on Ethan's experience in the dorms, I realized that he was making the most mature decision of all. Through mostly begging her (I think), he convinced her and the deal was done.
Much to Mark's liking, she has no bedrooms that are dorm-sized. Instead, she has large, beautifully-painted bedrooms, one of which has a king-size bed. Mark could see the scope of his idea, being fulfilled within minutes. He could bring EVERYTHING which in all honesty, I think he did.
The funniest thing is that he wanted to bring "Mac". Mac is an extra large, foam-filled bean bag that we bought for Mark several years ago. Seriously, this thing is so big that when we have extra guests over, one of the boys will sleep on it, and it's comfortable, even for their 6'4" frames! Of course, it's super soft, and super mushy, being Mark's bean bag. It's named Mac because it reminds us of a macrophage in that it just swallows one up--although it's green, not red :-)
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| Just to gauge scale, notice all three kids are on top of it (with room to spare!) |
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| THIS IS WHAT WE DO, BABY! |
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| Stuffed in the Element... |
It took two cars, but we managed to get everything there, unpacked and settled. I must admit that I'm not looking forward to next April when we must bring it all home again :-)
Softness rules, it makes you feel happy when you feel something nice and soft
ReplyDeleteYep, all the packing was effecient and all the stuff got here, thanks to the magnificent Mama! Haha I couldn't have done it without you! ANd honestly, my bed here probably TOPS my bed at home, which is a record(: Here I can lay sppread-eagle on my bed and still not have any part of my body off the frame(: I like King-size beds as well as soft things(:
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