He came home!

Wednesday night my son called from college and said he actually had 2 days without football, so he wanted to come home. The two days were Friday and Saturday with a practice at 1:00 on Sunday. I told him that his father and I couldn't get up to get him until after work, so he probably wouldn't arrive home until close to 10:00 or 11:00 p.m. on Friday, then we'd have to take him back on Saturday night or Sunday morning.

Well, he thought about it and decided it wasn't worth the hassle for his dad and I to bring him home. I felt a bit upset, but I knew that we would be going up to Buffalo the following weekend and we'd get to see him after the game. But on an off chance, I mentioned to him the fact that there were 4 old classmates about 20 minutes from him at Niagara University.

He called me back on Thursday night and screamed into the phone, "I'm coming home, MOM!" I was doing my happy dance for the rest of the evening. One of the girls from Niagara was leaving Thursday night, so that was a 'no go.' But another girl was leaving on Friday afternoon, so he asked her if she'd pick him up. She told him that she would if only he could get her to Buffalo State campus from Niagara. So, he e-mailed her the directions and he also promised he would drive them out of the city, because Buffalo is BIG and she had never driven in the city. Okay, so the deal was made. I told him if he got lost or off track to call me at work and I'd help him out getting un-lost and back on track.

Well, approximately 30 - 40 minutes after he was 'supposed' to leave campus, he called me and said that he had run into road construction and had missed his exchange from Route 33 to the NY State Thruway. He told me the location of where he was driving, so I popped up MapQuest and tried to figure out how to get him back to where he needed to be. So, I just figured it out, kind of, when he said, "Well, I'm no longer at the corner of Genesee St. and Beach Ave. We're now at Genesee St. and Elwood Place."

Okay, I took a deep breath and said, "Bryce, pull that car over, and stay in one spot. I can't keep up with you on MapQuest while you're driving down the road." I heard an anguished groan on the other end of the phone and he exclaimed in agony, "I just want to get HOME." I laughed (sorry, when I have a teenager who is in anguish, I often find a little humor gets them over the rough spot) and told him to 'cool his jets' that he'd be home in a few hours.

At that moment, he saw a Dairy Queen on the corner and told me he'd ask for directions there. Of course, he had 3 gibbering girls in the car (I could hear them saying over and over again, 'Bryce, Bryce, Bryce") and I think he was more than a little bit frustrated. I also heard one of the girls say, "Boy, what a man! He's actually going to ask for directions. I thought men didn't do that kind of thing."

Approximately 2 hours later, he pulled into the driveway, grabbed his backpack, ran into the house and gave me a great big huge bear hug that had my feet dangling above the floor. It was so great having him home. I guess, he's probably a pretty big 'mama's boy', because he kissed and hugged me for the next 20 - 30 minutes while I was finishing dinner and kept saying over and over and over again, "It's so good to be home. I missed you guys so much, Mom."

We had a wonderful weekend. He and I went shopping on Saturday to get a few things for him to take back to college. We had dinner with his grandparents on Saturday evening (they took us to a local fish joint, yummmm)! He spent some time with his friends. He went to the high school football game that our local boys won 61 - 0.

Yup, it was great having my boy home again!