The phone rang at about 9:00 p.m. last night. It was my sister, “what are you doing”? The one thing I know about my sister, is that when she starts a conversation with that question…she wants something. She told me that my niece who attends Eastern Illinois University (about 40 miles from here) had a 104 degree fever, and they were going to have to go take her to the emergency room and then bring her home. This was going to leave my 11-year-old niece with no where to go. So, I became “mom for a night.”

     We picked her up and while she finished her homework, I put sheets on the guestroom bed. We then began to discuss how we were suppose to handle lunch. She said she usually took a sandwich, fruit and a little jell-o. Little jell-o? In my house? I could do a sandwich, and my mom had just sent me a big box of oranges from Florida, we don’t have any of those “pack a lunch things” here anymore. She opted for carrot sticks. Of course as I put the whole thing together, she laughed as I put a handful of baby carrots into the gallon size Ziploc bag. Sandwich bags…who needs them? We eat lunch at home.

     This morning provided another challenge. Cereal choices for an 11-year-old don’t usually include Special K, Kashi and Bran Flakes. We are old people…we eat old cereal. We don’t have cute little frozen pancakes with chocolate chips. We eat toast or cereal. The next mini-crisis was a hair tie. She forgot her hairbrush (that I could do) and her hair tie. Thankfully, my daughter still had a drawer full of girly things in her bathroom and the problem was solved without too much panic. Homework, check. Lunch, check. Milk money, check. Get to school by 7:45, check. Being an aunt…fun! Having an empty nest…fabulous!