Parenting

Parenting an adult is a completely different beast from parenting a child. It brings a whole host of issues and questions that are sometimes difficult to balance. The emotional tie, the worry doesn’t diminish when your child becomes an adult, but our role in their life does. It’s not that we disappear from their life, but we’re no longer making decisions for them. It’s a balancing act between enabling and empowering.

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So why all this parenting talk? Last night as we started getting ready for bed, Jake texted that he was no stranded at DFW. They diverted his flight to Tulsa due to the weather. In the interim, American canceled his connection to Tallahassee. Unfortunately, American Airlines didn’t notify him until he landed in Dallas. This was, of course, hours after the flight had been canceled.

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When I spoke with him on the phone he sounded fried. It was awful. Honestly, it sucks to be so far away when your kid is in trouble. The FAA closed the Dallas airports due to weather, so there was no possibility of him getting on a flight last night. I quickly started trying to book him a hotel at or near the airport. It took six tries as each hotel would show sold out by the time I put my information in. This mama was not about to let him sleep at the airport.

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American wasn’t helpful and wasn’t forthcoming with information. After waiting for an hour, he finally got rebooked on a flight today. Moreover, they didn’t mention to him or any of his fellow passengers that the airline had already. placed their baggage on their rebooked flight. This would have been helpful to know before folks sat at baggage claim waiting for their bags. Honestly, after his experience yesterday and today, I would never fly American.

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Once he got to the hotel, I could finally go to bed. Until this point, I felt helpless. It was horrible to be 1,000 miles away and he battled through an impossible evening at DFW. I know these travel hiccups are almost of the right of passage, but it doesn’t make the situation easier. At least I could sleep in peace.

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Unfortunately, Jake’s travel troubles continued into today. As his flight was about to board, they delayed his flight due to maintenance issues. My poor kid was sitting waiting for his flight to board for over two hours. As was the situation last night, the communication from the airline continued to be poor. When he finally took off, we all breathed a collective sigh of relief. Now he’s in Tallahassee and happy to be through his travel ordeal.

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Tonight I’m relaxing on the couch happy in the knowledge he’s finally safely in Tallahassee. Parenting never gets easier even as our children become adults. The rules of engagement do change as they become adults, but the emotional investment never diminishes.

Here are some great resources for parenting an adult child:

Here’s a list of our day’s activities:

*I’m reading Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy last night. This is quite the departure from the world of Queen Asa.

*I’m still under the weather. Consequently, I took another rest day today.  Unfortunately, there will be no rollicking or running until I’m better.

*We’re tracking the Tropics here in Florida. Fortunately, all the tropical weather is moving away from us! Unfortunately, the heat has really cranked up with heat indexes in the triple digits.

*Uber Eats delivered my Dunkin’ this morning, which was awesome sauce.

*For dinner, I made myself some soup.

*My favorite surprise on the underwater cams, I watch during work, is seeing an octopus. Today I watched the safari cam, which never disappoints.

*Today’s word of the day is figure. I figured it was going to be faster to take a train to Tallahassee than by flying on American.

*I took my puppies including sweet Anakin for a walk. Today he didn’t pull my arm off or anything like that. I put on his harness