There's still a kid living upstairs, and I'm in no hurry for him to leave home

You don't have to watch any of this video, let alone all 4 minutes of it. I'm not even sure why I include it here, since it's only tangentially related to the subject of today's post. These are scenes from our house on Christmas Eve 2006, Jack's first Christmas. It makes me feel nostalgic.

Terry and I find ourselves in this interesting period of life in which four of our kids have moved out and we have a grandson, yet we also have a child of our own still living with us.

This isn't a case of, say, your 35-year-old son moving back in with you, either. Our youngest, Jack, is only 20 and a sophomore in college. He lives in the big bedroom on the top floor of our house.

For as much attention as we give grandson Cal, we still haven't finished the job of raising our own children (not that you ever really do finish). While Jack lives a largely independent life – as college students do and should – he still needs us for a lot of things.

We see him every day because he's a commuter student at Cleveland State University, so it's not like he lives on campus and is gone for weeks at a time. The way his class and work schedules are structured, he's at home a lot more than he's away.

The happy result is that we get to talk with him, eat dinner with him (sometimes), and play a role in his search for a career and a direction in life. Years after having done all of that with Elissa, Chloe, Jared and Melanie, I'm glad we still get to do it with Jack.

A lot of parents are excited to enter the empty-nest phase of their lives, and I'm sure we will be too when the time comes.

I'm just not ready for the time to come quite yet.

For one thing, Jack is fun. And funny. He probably plays the same role my siblings say I did for our parents, which was living at home throughout their 50s and early 60s and "keeping them young."

I love going to hockey games with Jack, talking about his plans for school and a career, trading funny YouTube reels with him, and generally having him around.

I can't imagine not hearing his footsteps upstairs when gets out of bed in the morning and heads to his bathroom.

I don't know what it will be like not having him around to gather the upstairs trash when it's time to take out the garbage on Sunday afternoons.

I simply can't fathom the idea of Jack and his cat Cheddar living anywhere but with us.

But it's going to happen, and probably sooner than I think. Like his brother and sisters before him, Jack will reach a point when the need to be on his own outweighs the financial and practical benefits of living with Mom and Dad.

I get that. Terry and I bought our first house when I was just 22 years old. The second we got the keys, I was anxious to move in and live by myself for a few months. That very weekend I moved out of Mom and Dad's place, the only home I had known to that point in my life. 

We're all programmed to seek independence in young adulthood. Whenever Jack is ready for that, we'll be there to support him.

But it's OK if it takes at least a few more years for it to happen. I really love having him around.