it so happened that kids were away on their own for a few days last week. the weekend before they were leaving, i had done a lot of groceries, and XH was like, 'why did you get so much, kids are going away anyway'. And I was like, 'but we are still gonna eat, right?' But i made it a point to finish all the mangoes before they left. What's mangoes without the whole family. 

We dropped them late in the night. Next day I went to work, and came back 1-2 hours later than usual. Found XH waiting, and he was like, 'i was just about to call you where you were'. Usually I text on fam group chat if I am running late, or give dinner instructions, or one of the kids call me. Never imagined XH to care too. Then we settled down infront of the electronics, tv, laptop, phones. At one point XH goes, 'wow it's terrible without them. Imagine, this will be our regular in a few years from now'. And i am like, 'Yep'. 

But it wasn't terrible. We were both home the entire weekend. I had thought we wouldn't talk at all. But we did. We told each other every interesting piece of news we were reading, or had read during the day. We watched something on netflix every night.  I would get up at appropriate times and make food, even ask him what he wants to eat. He would get up at appropriate times and do dishwasher. If i didn't get up to cook, he would ask me what i wanted to eat and heat that up, and I would do the dishes if i saw stuff on the sink. Other times, we would wait like puppies for kids to call, and almost huddle together to hear updates from them; or discuss pics that they had sent. XB and my other friends were like, 'woohoo you both are alone, go jump on him', and i would be like, oh please. 

It was his birthday too during that time. I was like, 'let's go to a hookah bar, the one time we can celebrate w/o kids'. and he was like, nah!. I mean i been wanting to smoke hookah for over 10 years now. No one goes with me. Anyhoos, my next suggestion was to atleast go to a mall and walk and all. And he was like, 'you really want to go to a mall this weekend?' After all those shootings, yeah a bad idea. Bar was also a bad idea, as it turned out dreadfully. So we grubhubbed the food from his fave mexican restaurant and ate at home. The shooting news was on all the weekend, and made us collectively depressed. And on the night kids were to come, we watched flight tracker obsessively to time ourselves perfectly. All back to normal.  

XH is anything but consistent, so i can't say for sure. But if this was any kind of preview, i think our old age will be fine, inshallah.

Empty nesting is not what it used to be. I think it’s more like a revolving door with the expense of housing. All the kids in the neighborhood have come back. They are partying it up with middle and high school classmates. Interesting to traverse thru early adulthood experiences again ,,except now it is extended adolescence. My parents in India with a strong joint family tradition had the 
Real empty nest after the kids left, now that I think about it.

Kris wrote:Empty nesting is not what it used to be. I think it’s more like a revolving door with the expense of housing. All the kids in the neighborhood have come back. They are partying it up with middle and high school classmates. Interesting to traverse thru early adulthood experiences again ,,except now it is extended adolescence. My parents in India with a strong joint family tradition had the 
Real empty nest after the kids left, now that I think about it.

yeah there is a good chance of that. older already talks about her next school to be closer by and drivable, and main motive being saving lodging money. Son already offers to go to community school. I think xh and i will be good this way too. I just used to wonder what our chemistry will be and what will we talk about, coz most our interactions are around kids, say 80%. Was a good refresher to see that we can talk about other stuff too.

sulu wrote:it so happened that kids were away on their own for a few days last week. the weekend before they were leaving, i had done a lot of groceries, and XH was like, 'why did you get so much, kids are going away anyway'. And I was like, 'but we are still gonna eat, right?' But i made it a point to finish all the mangoes before they left. What's mangoes without the whole family. 

We dropped them late in the night. Next day I went to work, and came back 1-2 hours later than usual. Found XH waiting, and he was like, 'i was just about to call you where you were'. Usually I text on fam group chat if I am running late, or give dinner instructions, or one of the kids call me. Never imagined XH to care too. Then we settled down infront of the electronics, tv, laptop, phones. At one point XH goes, 'wow it's terrible without them. Imagine, this will be our regular in a few years from now'. And i am like, 'Yep'. 

But it wasn't terrible. We were both home the entire weekend. I had thought we wouldn't talk at all. But we did. We told each other every interesting piece of news we were reading, or had read during the day. We watched something on netflix every night.  I would get up at appropriate times and make food, even ask him what he wants to eat. He would get up at appropriate times and do dishwasher. If i didn't get up to cook, he would ask me what i wanted to eat and heat that up, and I would do the dishes if i saw stuff on the sink. Other times, we would wait like puppies for kids to call, and almost huddle together to hear updates from them; or discuss pics that they had sent. XB and my other friends were like, 'woohoo you both are alone, go jump on him', and i would be like, oh please. 

It was his birthday too during that time. I was like, 'let's go to a hookah bar, the one time we can celebrate w/o kids'. and he was like, nah!. I mean i been wanting to smoke hookah for over 10 years now. No one goes with me. Anyhoos, my next suggestion was to atleast go to a mall and walk and all. And he was like, 'you really want to go to a mall this weekend?' After all those shootings, yeah a bad idea. Bar was also a bad idea, as it turned out dreadfully. So we grubhubbed the food from his fave mexican restaurant and ate at home. The shooting news was on all the weekend, and made us collectively depressed. And on the night kids were to come, we watched flight tracker obsessively to time ourselves perfectly. All back to normal.  

XH is anything but consistent, so i can't say for sure. But if this was any kind of preview, i think our old age will be fine, inshallah.

Which local High-School is this from?
Or this common in your area?