Family of five to empty nesters

Melissa has mixed feelings about the triplets going to separate schools. She thinks it’s good for them to each do their own things, but it’s hard for her. She misses them, especially with them being so far away. For her and Bill, the house is suddenly quiet. 

Melissa doesn’t like the quiet. She came from a big family and she likes the noise more. Bill has also been struggling with adjusting to not having his kids in the house.

“They’re growing into adults, so things are going to naturally change,” Bill said. “It’s just highlighted by going to college.”

He struggled the most with not feeling needed by his children.

“In middle school, you certainly rely on your parents, and then when you get to high school you rely on your parents a little bit less, especially when you start to drive,” Bill said. “But then when you go to college, man, it’s like you don’t even rely on your parents at all anymore, but it’s not something unique to me. It’s something that as parents we have to adjust to. As far as me adjusting, I don’t know if I really actually have yet or not. I’ll still look forward to them being at home. but I know that they’re never going to be middle schoolers again or elementary schools again.”

But Bill knows he doesn’t have to worry too much. Because the triplets have each other. And they have a rivalry, which provides a fun incentive to stay connected.

Bill has personal experience with family college football rivalries. He grew up in the environment of the Auburn-Alabama rivalry, and he hopes the triplets can make it the same way his family did.

“I think it’ll be kind of a positive thing for them in a way where they can go to the games together and turn the rivalry into a fun competition,” Bill said. “My family back home will go decorate somebody else’s house, the night before the game, or do something funny and play pranks on each other around game time. It’s all fun and everybody just gets a big laugh out of it. And I hope that the kids will kind of adopt something like that where they turn it into a fun thing like what I’ve seen my cousins do where they want to win every year, but they don’t hate each other.”

If Bella the Longhorn can be happy for her Sooner and Aggie siblings because OU and A&M won while she was surrounded by Sooners celebrating her Longhorns blowing the biggest lead (21 points) in the 117-year history of the Red River rivalry, you can rest assured that no college rivalry is ever going to come between these three. 

They may be a Longhorn, a Sooner and an Aggie, but they are first and foremost Russos, on the same team yesterday, today and for life.