changes in our household

Paul is home--he said he could pack himself up and come home but in the end I went to Clinton and helped him.  A few minutes after he left in his car, he called to say he had gone off the road.  He was in a ditch, uninjured and with very minor damage to the car.  So I went to help him and we waited an hour for AAA.  Then we waited another 45 minutes for someone to bring John to drive one car home, as I figured Paul was too shaken for it to be wise for him to drive home.

It gave us good talking time.  I said that when he has been home from college, I have treated that as a vacation and asked him to do very little.  But now that he is home to live, I hope to treat him less like my child to take care of and more like a roommate sharing in the work of running the household.  I said eventually I would even like him to start taking a turn cooking for us all.  His response to that was that it probably wouldn't be very good, but he seemed comfortable with the idea.  I also said I was glad to have him home to help with John.  Paul asked what that might involve and I said the first step is that I want him to learn to put on John's socks (it requires learning because John is sensitive about his feet and Paul puts his own socks on any which way).

I told Paul last night that I would buy him orange juice this afternoon when I went to the store, but if he wanted it sooner he could go to the store for himself.  He said "That would work, I went to BiLo a lot at school." 

Step 1: Integrate Paul into the household as a partner.  That is going well so far.
Step 2: Help him find volunteer work to do.
Step 3: Figure out possible changes in the house so he has better space.
Step 4: When does he want to start taking courses at the community college?