Great story. I’m glad Bobby is doing well. Kudos to Kiernan, but also to Dean for raising a remarkable young man.
Bottom line, CPR is a life skill that everyone should learn.
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Fantastic!
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After 19 of the longest months of my life, I finally got my arms around my boy last night. And met his wonderful girlfriend. And toured his beautiful house. Tears don’t begin to describe it.
We are staying with him as long as he’ll have us, probably to Labor Day Weekend when he thinks he’ll be able to drive back with us to the cabin in Maine for a few days and fly back to GA from there. He’s off (for the first time) this week, so we’ll just play and enjoy. When he goes back to work the following week, DH and I will tackle all the yard work that “happened” while he was gone for a month in Guam, and I will Mom Clean the house (although his GF did a pretty good job in advance of our visit). Kiddo also asked if I’d use some of my mad skills to help him de-bachelor the place*. 
On the downside, he told us that he’s leaving sometime in October for 6-7 months in Qatar, so we will not have him for the holidays again. Expletive Army. I’m not letting that news take the edge off the joy of just being with him now.
I just can’t believe we slept in our son’s house last night, and he is cooking for us and being a terrific host. What a long way he’s come from BS! I had to smile at the Choate memorabilia in his office — diploma, class pennant, crew pics, and the Choate mug I found in the cabinet above the coffee maker that I’m enjoying my coffee in as I write this (as he sleeps, probably til noon). I am continually amazed at the man he has become, certainly the growth and maturity that naturally happen, but also the what-would-be-subtle changes had we seen him frequently that are glaring after almost two years apart. Just the way he moves around his own place, smiles at his GF and puts his arm around her (gulp), talks about his job and upcoming deployment, and generally moves through an adult life that is comfortably his own, one we’re just beginning to finally see.
I’m sharing this as a postscript to those of you who are still on the BS ride, perhaps anxious for your child’s college results and future prospects especially in these uncertain times. We all want the best for our kids, and we’ve done everything in our power to equip them for success while loving them to death along the way. It’s hard to be at the brink of truly letting them go to adulthood, and I think it’s good for those of us who’ve been off the ride for a while to share a glimpse of what our BS grads are doing and where they’ve landed as encouragement to those coming up behind. Never in a million years at the start of our BS journey could we have imagined where our son would end up either for college or career. Where he is was not even at the bottom of our longest list, but he forged his own path and is loving the life he’s created. I can’t tell you how deeply satisfying that is to me and his father. So, as I sit on our son’s couch writing in the early morning quiet while he sleeps a well-deserved sleep, I hope in some part that ChoatieKid’s story is an encouraging example of how our very well prepared BS kids will find their various ways to fulfilling lives, regardless of what that looks like or how we worry for and about them. They’ve got this.
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*If he gives us a key, he may have a very different house when he returns from Qatar. 
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For schools with pools, I wish they would offer life guard training and for all schools, I wish they would have all students get certified in cpr and first aid and even offer Wilderness First Responder cert…
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My Kiddo has trained in wilderness survival and first aid for the camp counselor gig. Agree, I wish they would offer first aid/cpr for health class……also because much of what they covered in Health class, they already covered in middle school or already knew 
it’s been exactly a year since i’ve been on cc. what a ride it’s been! thank you to everyone who has helped me and i continue to help others here!
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I’d add NARCAN training to that list of wishes.
@Golfgr8
Total crickets about move in, dorms, pre season. It has gone too far. Kids don’t know with whom they are living and some are supposed to head to pre season in two weeks. There has been no parent communication about preseason AT ALL and it starts September 6.
I suspect the school is planning to back track on initial plans for fall semester and so they are not communicating until it will be too late for parents to do anything.
It leaves me with a very negative opinion of school. Too bad there’s no one from school reading cc.
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Please forgive me, but I forgot if your kiddo was incoming 9th grade or older. If your student is a Varsity Fall athlete (Football or soccer/VB) you should have heard about Pre-Season.
- Your student should have received their dorm assignment, as well as a note/email from the dorm parent and hall proctors. If not, please contact the school’s Office of Student Affairs ASAP.
On the website, there is a schedule posted and info about drop off, as well as the Opening Days.
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Does your student have a Green Key? Who is it (DM me) - are you not getting any information from your host family?
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Please note: If you are a first year, Deerfield does NOT provide information about your specific room or roommate until you arrive on campus and check in at the Main School Building (it might be outside this year due to COVID). They do not want kids (especially girls) trying to maneuver roommate situations and /or stalking on social media. By now, you should know which dorm and which floor your kid is on.
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If your kiddo is a first year, they should have received information about their orientation get-away to Camp Greylock.
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You should have received a schedule for parents about opening days and the new parent meeting the afternoon of drop off.
Please feel free to DM me for more information - For those of you dropping your kiddos off at DA, I will be in the bar at the Deerfield Inn perfecting my bar tending skills 
It is completely opposite at Hotchkiss. They emailed students with their roommate’s names if they have one. They want students to get to know each other before they set foot on the campus. Everyone also knows their advisors. However, they don’t provide information about the dorm name or dorm parents, proctors, etc. The students will learn on the moving day.
Looking at the Cone of Probability…
…Hoping it tracks further east than predicted.
@ChoatieMom
your story was just beautiful! Thank you for the postscript!!
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Henri? It’s strange watching how calm everyone in the northeast appears to be. My parents are currently there and when I asked what preparations they are doing they had no answer. I had to let them know it’s forecast to be a cat 1 and headed straight at them (perhaps the downside of giving up cable for hulu). Stores in their town are announcing they’ll be closed tomorrow…in our area (and we get a lot of hurricanes), stores would be closed today to prepare. Keeping my fingers crossed it’s not a bad hit for anyone.
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Stay safe, everyone! Especially those of you who are heading up to NE or driving from NE, as well as LI. Already had flooding earlier this week in parts of CT, so it will get very soaked.
Northeasterners are naturally calm during weather events. Things might be shut down tomorrow 
. Lots of us have generators anyway because of the snowstorms we used to get.
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I live on long island. Safe to say some people have been freaking out.
They’re not usually this calm.
The boats are still in the water. Usually there’s a mad rush to get the boats out of the water and shrink wrapped.
Traffic on LI’s North Fork was bumper to bumper this afternoon going East. No, that’s not a valid evacuation route; there is no way these people are heading to Orient Point. There were more staff members than customers at Lowe’s.
I keep getting messages that I should expect to lose power for 7-10 days…
Maybe in Nassau County… Not on the East End. It’s surreal.
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My parents went to home depot. We’re not too scared about the storm- we’re scared about losing power. My sisters have celiac disease and my dad has a lot of medication that needs refrigerating. Last year’s storm resulted in 9 days of no power.
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thankfully I don’t live out east- although I know a lot of people that do. I’m concerned.
I live in one of the “affected areas” so there’s many warnings that blow up my phone.
Yep. Got all those.
My father got stranded at school during the 1938 storm (Cat 4), so he’ll say it’s all much ado about nothing.
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