September 10, 2007
Then, a few days later, you're at your first day of "Homeschool School".
Lucky for me, most of my neighbors homeschool.
It's a movement, a trend, a fad. And I don't know what it means for this generation of schoolkids - but for me, right now, it is fantastic. Because it means that I have lots of mentors and programs to pull from for help.
One of them is a once-a-week enrichment program that gives Bear a day 'at school' to have Gym, Art, Science Experiments, even Drama Club with a bunch of other homeschool kids.
He gets all the stuff I can't give him - like social interaction with his peer group - in a way that supplements what we're already doing at home.
Bear told me last week, sandy from the beach and mulish, that he didn't want it. Would hate it. That I couldn't MAKE him go.
Then, as I dragged him away from the huddle of other 1st and 2nd grade boys after the day was done, he said 'Mom! You never told me that it was a Homeschool School!'
'Oh, does that make a difference?' I asked.
'Yeah!! This is great!'
And, for the first time in 2 years, I relaxed about Bear's education.
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September 06, 2007
This morning, he woke US up. Too excited to be 7. Too excited to start his day.
"Tell me!" he insisted, diving under the covers betweens us.
"Tell you.... what?" I teased.
"About the day I was born!" Bear exploded, laughing and squirming.
Maybe we started the tradition because Bear had been a high-risk pregnancy. I am what they so tactfully used to call a 'habitual aborter'. They don't know why - whether it's my Lupus or my blue-green eyes.
But either way, it started on January 12, 2000.
"You took a test?" he prompts.
"I took a pregnancy test," I agree.
What I don't say is that I'd had my period the week before, so it was an insane thing for me to pee on a stick. But I'd had a very vibrant dream and I just felt.. I should.
"It was positive!" he grins. "That was me!"
Back then, we were excited but also confused and afraid all at once. I called a friend on the way to work - a woman who'd had two 'miracle babies'.
"I don't know what to do," I cried in bumper to bumper traffic."Get yourself to the doctor. Now," she insisted.
A few hours later, CD and I stood and shook after my exam waiting for the doctor to tell us the news.
He handed us some pamphlets about miscarriage and said that it didn't look good. I was spotting heavily and he sighed a lot as he spoke.
He scheduled an ultrasound, and made us promise not to get our hopes up.
We lied.
We went home and sat together on the couch.
We waited.
"On January 14, 2000, we heard the most beautiful noise you can imagine."
"Thudda-thudda-thudda-thwudda..." CD rumbles.
"Me!" Bear cheers.
We nod in the dim of the morning. Then 226 days of bedrest later (plus 10 days of great health sometime in May).
"You and Daddy went on a trip to California and I swam in your tummy in you and you were in a pool on a roof of a hotel..." Bear fills in.
"The Intercontinental," CD agrees. "My work flew us all out because I said I couldn't leave mommy."
"Or me," Bear reminds him, seriously.
"And then, on September 6, 2000, after a day of laboring and trying to get you born, the doctors told Daddy and me that you couldn't wait anymore.
"So at 3 PM, we went into a special room and 52 minutes later they took you out of my tummy by your feet.
"You stretched out into the world.You reached out and grabbed the doctor around the neck. She had your handprint there for hours."
(Yes sweetie, you slapped the doctor...)
"Your dad cut your cord. There was extra blood in there that is very special and the doctors took that to help others."
(From the very start, your birth blessed so many...)
"After they wrapped you up, your daddy got you and held us all close together. We all finally got to meet the baby with the powerful heart."
(You had dark blue eyes and big cheeks...)
"The nurses and doctors wanted to take you to the nursery but they just had to wait until I was stable before your dad consented to leave my side."
(No, Bear, he was never going to leave yours.)
"Hours later, when I woke up in Recovery, your dad brought you to me again."
(...and then we were a family.)
"On the day you were born, it was warm. The sky was blue with puffy white clouds. A doctor walked with your tiny handprint on her neck. The Cubs were winning in extra innings. Jane Addams would have been 140 years old...
"And a miracle happened."
Was I the miracle?
Yes, Bear. You were. And you still are.
Down Memory lane....
2004
2005
2006
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