Homecoming

This past weekend, October 10, 2009 to be exact, Ricky attended his first high school dance - Homecoming 2009. He went "stag" with his cousin Kyle. While I was a bit nervous about him going without a date and feeling like he would fit in, he was fine with it. We talked about it and he said he had friends who he would hook up with when he got there. We went the week before and he picked out a great burnt orange shirt with a tie that was a bit abstract, but great to go with the grey pants we found. He chose the color and the tie and it was a great match. He said kids at the dance even liked it and he was the only one that he knew of in that color.
I'm having a difficult time with the changes that are upon us. Our family of 5 is, a lot of times, a family of 4 as Ricky branches out and spends more time with friends. He has his pasta dinner on Friday nights for cross country which usually turn into hanging at someone's house for a while until the football game. Even for the dance, he and Kyle hit some fast food joints for dinner, then hung at Kyle's house until the dance, then he went to the Devilbiss's house after to hang with some upper classmen. He left at 5:30, returned at 11:30 to change clothes and then came back at 1:00 a.m. He is having a good time, as it should be, but I am really feeling out of the loop. Maybe it is because he didn't have a date for the dance and therefore there wasn't a lot of excitement over the whole thing - no planning for dinner and coordinating the shirt to the dress. Maybe it is just because he is getting older and this is the way it is supposed to be. I don't really know, but I know that it is leaving me rather unsettled. I have talked to him a bit about my feelings and told him that it isn't his fault, just that it is the way I feel and he doesn't need to do anything about it. He's such a good kid, he listens to his meloncholy mom and just smiles. You gotta love this boy.