The Girl, no longer a baby, is back at college after a short trip home for the holidays. I didn't plan to talk about her again so soon, but her visit wasn't quite the warm and fuzzy Christmas vignette I was expecting.

We had sent our bright, shining light off to college with the highest of hopes. And why not? She was a largely well-behaved honor student in high school, and as the oldest child, many of the family rhythms had revolved around her.

"One down, one to go," we thought as we waved farewell to her in September, patting ourselves on the back for a job well done.

But the job wasn't done, not by a long shot.

We turned our attention to the middle-schooler, settling into a new routine built around homework and soccer. Then She came home for Christmas and the wet towels were back. Everywhere. So was her hair in the shower drain. And the lights left on in her room, the front door left unlocked, the makeup borrowed and not returned. Who was this interloper? It was high school all over again.

Already suffering from the strain of worrying how we were going to pay for four years of college, I had become increasingly annoyed when, not long after first leaving for California, she still hadn't sent the last of the graduation thank-you notes or called her ailing grandfather, who died a few weeks later. Then the bounced checks began arriving.

Just before Christmas Day came official news of a lackluster academic performance.

Ho, ho, ho!

Her happy homecoming became infused with tension, anger and disappointment that I found hard to put aside, even in the spirit of the holidays. I spent the time in stewing mode, vacillating between taking the Atticus Finch approach to parenting, all calm wisdom and reassurance, and wanting to tear open a can of tough love.

Should I blame myself for not making better financial preparations for college? For not being more strict? For buying her too many things? Yes, yes and yes. Was I making too much of this first-term debacle? Probably. Worse things can happen to a kid away at college.

By next week I'll be missing her dearly, but when we put her on the plane on Saturday, I felt a twinge of guilty relief. Having her around would just remind me of our shortcomings during this fragile phase of separation. I just wanted to resume my routine with the middle-schooler, whose biggest worry right now is meeting the science fair deadline.

Launching our firstborn into the world, we had set our hopes a little too high, expecting that in a mere three months the child would become a woman. A woman who hung up her towels and balanced her checkbook.

Six months will pass before she returns home again. We both have a lot of learnin' to do in the meantime.

Reach Christie Wilson at cwilson@honoluluadvertiser.com.