That is every parent’s nightmare! I’m so sorry you had to live it. I’m glad he will recover fully.
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I’m so glad that he’s OK! I’m sure everyone here relates to it, and a real silver lining is that everyone learns from this situation and hopefully he does better in the future. Sending virtual hugs!
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As a parent of 2025 lurking on this thread, thank you for sharing this- my D25 is a firstie so this was good to hear. That description of first year rings true- she is enjoying it but still finding her footing with classmates, schoolwork, etc. Just the day before we had a heart-to-heart talk about some of the stresses she’s had. Overall, she’s doing ok but I am looking forward to the more settled, confident sophomore phase!
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D24 is going to explore participating in her college’s summer science research program, which is 8 weeks long and students who participate receive a stipend ($$!). For junior year, we’re probably going to have her take our jellybean car with her (it’s a Honda Fit). Since she’s in TX, I’ll probably have to get a hail blanket. We occasionally get hail here in AZ, but it’s not ever very big. If it does hail, it’s like tiny little pellets.
So if any of you are in big hail country and use hail blankets for your vehicles, I’m open to ideas! This is something I know nothing about. 
None of the housing options at D24’s college has covered parking.
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Just want to note with the hail blanket you should make sure it is something your D can get on and off by herself. We used to cover up a car (not a hail blanket) and some covers were hard to manage. Also how the cover fits the car is important – one cover we had kept flying off in the wind (perhaps hail covers are heavier).
Congrats about all else going on for D.
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So glad your son is OK!!
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Instead of using hail blanket, I have covered the cars with tarp then putting bags of mulches over the windshield areas. This ghetto style of coverage won’t protect the body, but at least saved the windshields. 
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D24’S shared that there might be the possibility of her & Roommate to move into an on-campus apartment in the spring semester with 2 junior girls. The 2 juniors are apparently have a lot of drama w/the other 2 students living in the 4 BR apartment (4 single bedrooms) and there’s a strong possibility that those 2 other students will move out and into other housing at the end of the semester. I told D24 to not count her chickens until they’re hatched, but she’s pretty excited over the possibility of getting to share a bathroom with just 1 other person.
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So S24 is back for a brief fall break, which is great. We have collectively decided the car we sent to college with him was not ideal, so we car shopped and found an appropriate used car for him. Apparently it got the girlfriend seal of approval, which of course was critical.
Apparently he also needed the break. As I note above, I think consistent with the etymology of “sophomore”, he was feeling a bit overconfident early in the year and so increased his committed activities level by joining a fraternity. Then the reality of also being a second-year pre-med and active in two club sports hit, and he got a little stressed. He seems to have been keeping it together, but he explained he really needed a period without a lot of social commitments to get back on top of class work and also relax a little.
Big picture these seem like the normal cycles of college to me. You don’t want to waste all these great opportunities, but it is easy to overcommit.
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Sophomore year is going well for mine, too, in a way that is much more vibrant and active than her first year was. Her new housing situation absolutely lit a spark that has been there her whole life (she’s ALWAYS been an outdoors kid) and given her new confidence - she’s organizong one of their weekend trips, going to be the lead on ski trips in spring, ran a 5k (?!?), and yesterday one of her HS friends drove down from MHC, they took the train into Boston to meet a 3rd HS friend who is at Tufts, and wandered the MFA and Newbury St, and I think all 3 had the day they dreamed of when they all headed to schools in Massachusetts.
While she has been gone, one of our beloved cats died unexpectedly, and we just adopted a new buddy for his brother, we finished a major home project, and not being here for these big events has really made “she’s creating her own life” more real for all of us. She won’t be home until Thanksgiving as her house is doing a camping trip (which the school wasn’t going to permit because no one had wilderness first aid training - and then she shared her certification, another pro for the house and their 11th hour resident!) but my parents are passing through next week and will be seeing her and taking her to dinner. (She and my parents have far more patience for each other than either of them do for ME 
, so they are all looking forward to it.)
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Enjoying all of these great updates. D24 is having a fantastic semester. She’s not coming home for fall break next week, as her BF who has been on co-op in Baltimore is planning to visit. We will be heading up the weekend after to visit, so at least we’ll get to see her soon. I feel like after parents weekend, the remainder of the term will just fly by…it honestly feels like just a week or two ago we were moving her in. I know from experiencing it with my D20 how fast it all goes…I’m willing time to slow down for D24, but so far it isn’t working.
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Can’t wait to see my kid later this week! She said that she’s looking forward to D26 & I coming so I can buy her more snacks. 
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I’m loving reading these updates!
S24 is having a great sophomore year so far. His course load sounds insane to me (orgo 2, physics, bio, neuroscience, plus a required class), but he seems fine so far. He’s trying to load up on all of the pre-med requirements so he can hopefully study for the MCAT and go abroad next year. We will see!
He recently had a digital poster accepted to a medical conference and will travel there next week. He’s also writing a paper based upon that research, which he plans to submit to medical publications. Also, he’s shadowed 2 neuropathology exams with the local county medical examiner - that’s been an incredible experience.
He’s also been busy with his club sport.
Socially, because of his school and XC workload, he hasn’t partied much. But he and his boyfriend hang out a lot in smaller groups. He’s in a fraternity and is living in the house this year. It’s a pretty low-key frat scene with minimal commitments, and he seems to be enjoying it.
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D24 is a bit stressed this week due to midterms, though in her view, it is “always” midterms season at her college. Plus, along with her fellow sophomores, she also must declare her concentration by Friday and formally match with an advisor in her area of concentration (fortunately, her favorite professor has agreed to take on the role!). Due to the nature of her academic ambitions, her concentration arrangements across three separate departments, so not an easy week. Also, while not as severely overcommited with extracurriculars as many of her peers, she has added a theater tech role this semester, since a group of her friends are performing in a musical together. Next week, she’ll have to turn her attention to putting together a poster based on her summer’s research for an upcoming scienfic conference. I do think she anticipated that she would a bit more time to socialize and relax, and is approaching sophomore slump territory. The important thing is that she’s happy. That said, hopefully things will level out a bit soon!
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Emergency text from D24 this afternoon…”We decided to go to Toronto for fall break. Leaving Friday. I forgot to bring my passport back to school this year, can you send it?”
Off the post office I go, where “guaranteed next day” apparently does not actually mean that anymore? Fingers crossed it gets to her by 3pm Friday…
Also, was planning to fly her home for Thanksgiving break…I guess its better to find out now that she doesn’t have her passport with her than when she got to the airport and realized that her non-RealID DL no longer works for flying.
Zoinks.
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2nd update in a row here…but this one is a good one.
D24 attended her school’s career fair yesterday. She is beginning the process of trying to secure a required co-op position for next summer + fall. From reading the parents FB page for the past 18 months, I was bracing for her to be disappointed (have read reports of kids waiting hours on a single line to speak with a company rep/recruiter, only to be told they aren’t hiring for that particular field as well as an overall tough time for certain majors to have difficulty getting any co-op experience at all). Happy to report that of the 4 companies she was able to speak to, 2 are hiring process engineer interns and took her resume. She had a 5th company in mind, but was unable to wait any longer on that line (she had to get to class). Would be wonderful if either of the 2 offered an interview, but even if they don’t, it sounds like it was a good experience, and a great first opportunity to see what it is all about and start exploring.
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S24 made it back to St Louis. We are actually visiting Halloween weekend, so it doesn’t feel like it will be too long.
Meanwhile, D30, who is in a private K-8 and we thought was heading to one of the local day high schools, is now becoming interested in boarding school. Between us, I wonder if she is getting a little jealous of S24’s experience.
But support her we shall, so we are now in a mad scramble to put together a list for her to explore. Was kinda hoping we had four more years before getting back into this mode, but oh well.
Anyway, feel free to check out my brand new topic in the Prep School side of things, if only to be amused at how low down that learning curve I am starting. It is the one asking about schools like Mercersburg (a current favorite possibility).
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My daughter went to boarding school. It was an amazing experience for her. I hope your daughter ends up with having lots of choices she loves.
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…..asaaaand it didn’t. Tracking has shown the passport in transit with no updates since 1pm yesterday. The Toronto-bound carload just departed without her.
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Meanwhile, in the balmy South . . . D24 came home yesterday after taking her last midterm. She is growing and enjoying herself in the way I hoped she would last year–but that was a bumpy ride. I am so happy to see her doing things like going to the Italian conversation meetup in a cafe, modeling for the student organization that does fun stuff, working on a committee for the big campus fundraiser, and just in general managing to focus on academics and still have a lot of fun. There is a best friend who has emerged from the tumult of last year, and they do a lot together. She is a great influence, and D24 is increasingly ready to simply not worry about what other people think, and just do her own thing, even if someone might think it weird! This was one of the great struggles she had in high school—lack of confidence. I am so happy to see her get beyond those days and find people who just want to live and let live. Good times!
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