Four years of ‘school’ at Black Mountain Presbyterian weekday school has come to a close for Shepherd.
Our oldest kid has given us one of our first big milestones as parents.
Sadie said it best on the playground at the after-graduation picnic:
He’s going out into the world!
Year 1
Shepherd, when you started at pre-school you couldn’t walk yet. We were working and living at Camp Rockmont at the time.
The Covid-19 pandemic was very much still happening. Your class didn’t have to, thankfully, but all of the other kids at the school, and the adults, were wearing masks. That seems like so long ago.
Sadie hadn’t yet started teaching classes at the YMCA. We hadn’t joined the church yet (a now gravitational center in our lives)! Most of our friends were not in our lives yet.
Life was way different. Good, but different.
Year 2
We’d just spent our (newly) traditional two weeks in Oregon after the summer was over at Rockmont.
I left Rockmont when we returned and took at a job at a software company that worked with summer camps.
This was a huge move for the family. We didn’t actually move, thankfully. We stayed in Black Mountain, but it was a gear shift we weren’t expecting a year earlier let’s say.
We sort of always thought we’d be a Rockmont for a long time. We lived in camp-provided housing, so when we left at the beginning of this year we were living with our friends Dan and Karen for your first few months of Year 2!
Greta was about 6 months old at the time.
We’d now joined Black Mountain Pres. and were starting to get know and be known more in Black Mountain which was a good feeling.
By November, we’d taken Sadie’s grandmother up on an offer to rent to own a house she would buy and found that house. I’m not sure where we’ll be living when you read this, but this was the Wolf Creek Dr. house. The one we were in during Hurricane Helene.
Throughout this Year 2 of pre-school, I left the software job and started freelancing for myself in marketing mostly. Another big jump!
Sadie got certified to teach Body Pump and starting instructing at the YMCA.
We were cruising. This was also a really fun summer as a family. We just spent so much time together.
Year 3
Greta joins the pre-school party.
Like I said, we were cruising. From what I remember, more stayed the same over this period of time than changed.
By March 2024, I’d stopped freelancing and took a job as a recruiter at a law firm (remote) with Drew.
This was a welcomed changed. A salary, a bit to ‘figure out’, and some stability over what all had changed since we left Rockmont.
I don’t mean to discount that time though: we grew a lot because of those decisions and I think making them early in our life as parents, and our marriage, was very positive for us.
Year 4
This year. Wow. It’s been pretty full.
A few weeks after your started Year 4, Hurricane Helene happened a upended, what would you say, reasonable predictability?
Our house was damaged significantly enough that we lived with my parents, G and GiGi, for a few weeks following.
After we moved back, we lived at Amy’s house for three weeks.
After that, we moved into Paul and Lisle’s family’s cabin in Montreat for about two months. By mid-December, we were back in our house.
What happened in between that?
Well, you were out of school for a few weeks because our church turned into a main figure in hurricane relief effort transforming all of the spaces. Not to mention, there was no power or water for a few weeks right after the storm.
In November, Goldie was born! Wow.
Sadie’s parents, Grandpa and Grandma, visited for close to six weeks through Christmas.
We had some good snow days this winter!
The spring has been quite enjoyable.
This was the year at school that you had the most emotions. Behavioral challenges, one might call them.
We haven’t figured out how to help you through that best, or challenge you to do better, but thankfully that’s part of what being on your own is for: your teachers, the other adults, and your friends model a better way for you.
It wasn’t a big deal; sometimes you’d just hiss at your teacher and be angry enough at something that you wouldn’t go into the classroom. But, apparently, you always recovered.
These things challenged me and your mom and I think they’ll be just funny memories by the time you’re reading this.
Whenever you do read this, I hope you know we’re proud of you.
We love you a lot.
It was happy-sad watching you at your little ‘graduation’ today.
You are going out into the world. We’re with you.
That will make all the difference.