“Empty nest” was the dream — kids successfully launched and living their best lives, while I, responsible for only myself (very low maintenance), would have plenty of free time to live my own best life. I would spend all my time and energy towards my own goals, knowing the kids I’d spent 20 years nurturing (and worrying about) were ok on their own.

But just two months after my youngest had officially left for college, I realize my nest is not quite empty and this job is most definitely not over. Here are six random “mom” things I have done after my kids had flown the coop. Turns out each one was as rewarding as it was unexpected.

1. Take a four year old to the emergency room

I spent the last Friday of summer at the emergency vet with a very sick four year old… gecko.

Marvin is my daughter’s lizard, and we both adore him. After she left for college, I moved Marvin down to the living room so I could watch him all the time. He’s amazingly cute — rivaling any human four-year old, IMHO. He climbs around, looking about curiously, cocking his head and smiling his gecko smile. He was a ball of reptile energy and I loved it.

Then one day he started acting like a sick kid gecko, not even glancing at the tasty crickets hopping by. I knew — just like every mother who spends large parts of her day observing her four-year old in the wild knows — that there was something wrong. He was not the perky reptile I’d gotten used to eating dinner with and it wasn’t normal.

I sprung into action (my mom-reflexes are still sharp), Googled “reptile emergency vet near me” and made the call. The doctor on the phone urged me to bring him immediately, because it geckos can go downhill really fast if they don’t eat. I took a half day off work to bring him in.

Note: I know that it is a tremendous privilege to be able to take half a day off work for a six-inch reptile. No matter how cute he is, he’s “just” a lizard. But he’s super cute, and loves crawling up my shoulder. And I do not want my daughter’s gecko to die on my watch.

Waiting for six hours in a waiting room while the doctor did her stuff — x-rays, body exam — felt eerily familiar. Going home with a sick and limp four-year-old, a bag of medicine, and two sheets of instructions did, too. Ah, the joys of motherhood!

I had a lot of work-work to catch up on when I got home. But, on the plus side, I kind of felt like the time was well-spent. I feel really lucky to get to be a reptile mom since my daughter left for college. It’s satisfying to help a sick creature in need. I like taking care of him, and it felt good to take him to the doctor’s and to make sure he gets better. The way he looks up at me is adorable. So is his cute gecko smile and the way his body moves. I’m also “mom” to a beautiful ball python named Patrick. Not all empty-nesters get that opportunity.

Love is love. Maybe since I have all the pets, I don’t actually qualify as an empty-nester?

2. Coax a gecko to eat from a plastic syringe

The bag of medication I came home with included two antibiotics, to be administered once a day for fourteen days. I thought I was done with this dance. Back when my kids were young, I thought that getting liquid medicine into a toddler was hard, but I soon realized that was actually a walk in the park compared to this.

I soon found that — much like with a toddler — if a gecko doesn’t want to open its mouth, you probably can’t make him. Geckos are as wriggly as newborns, plus way smaller. I worried about breaking him — crushing or dropping him — in my efforts to make him better. That first night, I spent at least an hour trying to get the medicine into his mouth and not all over my shirt. I was a miserable failure.

But being an empty-nester, I felt a little less urgency, and a little more patience than I had when my own kids were four. I gave it an hour (went back to do some work) and the second try worked a lot better. Yeah, being a new reptile mom is just like being a new human mom.

I soon discovered the winning technique of holding him on my chest and dispensing the medicine drop by drop onto his chin so he would instinctively lick it off. It took almost half an hour to get him to eat all of it. When he did, I was so proud!

Later I Googled “how to get a gecko to take medication” and found several videos on a really good technique that made the process way, way easier. Gotta love YouTube and Google. Truly there’s nothing you can’t learn online!

3. Miss a music event because of a sick kid

As a mom, I missed out on plenty of things when someone in the family came down with a cold. There was the New Year’s Eve I cried when we had to cancel a fun evening we’d planned with another family because my daughter came down with strep throat (thank goodness no one else got it!). Or the holiday we couldn’t visit the grandparents because one of the kids came down with a fever after going to a friend’s birthday party. Or the season we didn’t ski because the six-year old broke an arm on the jungle gym at school the week before February break.

Since I never get sick, I figured these missed opportunities were now a thing of the past.
But a Saturday caring for Marvin — running out to get a new heat lamp to keep him just the right temperature, taking time to feed him his medicine, checking the temperature in his enclosure every half and hour— and catching up on work from the missed afternoon before meant I completely forgot about the all-day outside porch festival in the town next door.

After a year and a half of no performances because of Covid, I was really looking forward to it, but with Marvin on my mind, it slipped my mind until I found an open tab in my browser with the schedule. The weather was gorgeous, too.

On the plus side, Marvin is looking a lot more lively tonight. He even seemed to smile, which makes me think it was worth it.

4. Love cats

I am not a cat person. Actually, I‘m not so fond of any pets with fur. So I was almost dreading being “stuck” with two middle-aged felines while my daughter was living in a dorm.

Although I “thought” I was a cat person when I was young, I have realized that I am not, for so many reasons: I don’t think cats aren’t very interesting company; they don’t have much to talk about over dinner like the newest Netflix series they just found or their weird dreams; they are messy, and will never learn to pick up after or take care of themselves. In other words, cats are the exact opposite of empty-nester freedom.

I’d always seen the cats as annoying – collateral damage that I put up with because I love my kids and my kids love the cats.

But with both kids gone, I have come to appreciate how nice it can be to have a warm, purring cat on my lap when I curl up to watch the Kominsky Method. They’ve stopped peeing outside the litter box long ago, and they don’t meow outside my bedroom door (it’s open, they still meowed) late at night, so that helps. And since I’m the only human around, they have kind of warmed to me, too. It’s not the same as having my interesting kids around to talk to, but it’s not bad either.

5. Send a ramen care package

I mailed said package the day after my daughter called me with her first college cold. It (her cold, not the package) was a bad one. Even if not Covid (she had two negative tests), it knocked her out for almost a week. There was so much delightful communication in the few days she was sick! Way more than in the entire month previous. It energized me, spurred me into action.

She doesn’t eat chicken soup or really any soup. I figured a care package was the best I could do to help her from 1,000 miles away. And yes, the package had a few other things in it, too: an L.L. Bean mug, a get-better card, some granola bars. But the primary ingredient was ramen — lots of ramen.

She got better, so it must have worked. I now know to never doubt the power of ramen to cure. Pulling together a true care package — filled with little surprises and ramen (ramen!) — felt nice, too. And an unprovoked phone call from her on a Sunday afternoon was… magical.

6. Consider staying in Boston long term

We moved to the greater Boston area from Toronto seven years ago because of the “great” public schools. But a month in, I wasn’t so sure it was a great move, after all. The schools, the parents, the other students, they’re all too intense, there’s too much pressure, too much competition, too much privilege. In my heart of heart, I knew I wanted Maine, not Massachusetts. But we didn’t want to move the kids to another state and another school, so we/I stuck it out.

I’ve always felt like Boston was a holding place until my kids graduated from high school and I could move up to Maine.

I never found a strong friend group, and I never warmed to the area. After five years, I am still definitely not in the “I love Boston” camp. But since I’m on my own in my empty nest, I find myself reconsidering. I love my job (which I couldn’t have found anywhere else), and even though I am mostly working remote, it’s nice to be able to pop into the office (which is super nice) once or twice a week.

It’s a great location in many ways. I’m only a few hours from my parents in Maine and twenty minutes from Logan airport. I still have a lot of Boston yet to explore. I can walk to two Starbucks, and New York City is only a three hour train ride.

I’m renovating the kitchen and bathrooms in our condo and my contractor says I will not want to leave once it’s done/. He may be right. Who knew?

Is it ironic (or just human nature) that with less to force me to stay in the area, I feel less inclined to leave?

I’m looking forward to seeing what my empty nest has in store for me next!

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