by Brian
Meet Taur. Taur is a winged cat-taur. Taur is the fierce leader of the Super Six team who battle the Evil Toons. Taur is the brother to Blackfire and Prince and son to Shadow and King Flamzer.
Before we get into the kids’ first nights living alone, how about a little apartment humor from the comic legend Steven Wright…
“I installed a skylight in my apartment… the people who live above me are furious.”
“My roommate got a pet elephant. Then it got lost. It’s in the apartment somewhere.”
(Side note – getting the kids a 1st floor apartment was important given that Jolee is well known for her “elephanting” or loud footsteps. You can always hear her coming).
Dylan and I went to pick up the keys to their new apartment, right at noon on their scheduled move in day. As I felt my own excitement rise, I could almost feel the anxiety building in my son. Our first step together would be a thorough walk through, a checklist to document the condition of everything that comes with renting an apartment. As part of his responsibility, we decided it was a good idea that Dylan should actually document and sign off on the apartment move in condition. In addition to giving him responsibility of the apartment, it was also a great opportunity to show him how everything worked along the way. We spent a solid hour opening and closing each and every window, drawer, and cabinet door. We adjusted the thermostat, turn on every light, and tested the dish washer, oven, washer and dryer. Dylan took pictures with his iPhone and together we penned simple notes about each of the small issues that we uncovered. To complete the effort, we dropped off the paper document and emailed in the supplemental jpgs to the main office.
With some help from the kids, Bobbie and I spent the next two days moving in the furniture that would populate the kid’s new apartment. Dylan got a much-needed new bed and we gifted them our former bedroom TV for their family room entertainment. As their apartment was coming together, it was becoming obvious that both kids were still not overly excited to actually move out on their own and harbored some insecurities about actually leaving the nest. Then, almost as a final effort to stay, Jolee got COVID and began her quarantine in our second bedroom.
In an attempt to be fair, we let Dylan know that he could wait until Jolee got better so they could coordinate their move in at the same time. He shocked us just a day later when he announced he was now ready to make his move. It was early July and the irony was not lost on me that our son had taken one giant step toward independence on the night of July 4th. I think we were actually more nervous than Dylan. However, the next day we found that everything was completely fine, no texts or phone calls in the middle of the night had been needed. Our son had survived the night all by himself and we could not have been prouder.
We wanted to share a funny story that happened on Day 2 of Dylan’s independent living.
Bobbie and I ventured out to the theater next door to see Top Gun Maverick, our first movie out in years. While there, we received a text and phone call that there had been an incident. Dylan explained that “loud popping sounds” were heard from his kitchen and he had found that 6 Diet Cokes had exploded. Although he did the best he could to clean up, we planned to stop by after the movie ended to help with the aftermath. Bobbie was feeling a bit guilty, thinking that when she had adjusted the temperature on their refrigerator that the exploding soda cans were her fault.
When we arrived and investigated the scene, there was another explanation. Our last 3 refrigerators had been of the refrigerator-on-top and freezer-on-bottom variety. You may be wondering why I am telling you this. Evidently, when you give your “independent” child 6 Diet Coke cans for his apartment, it is important that he knows which side is the fridge! Yes frozen Diet Coke does explode!