Of Good Report

My baby turned 6 last week on April 3, 2013.  She is a loving, joyful girl.  This year on or around my children's birthdays I am going to write about their actual day of birth.  Sarah's birth day was the only one that was scheduled ahead of time.  I had four other youngins at home that needed to be cared for and I thought that 39 weeks sounded like long enough to be pregnant so I went ahead and scheduled an induction. There were some things that were convenient about that, but in the end, it was not my preference.  I got to the hospital showered and as prepared as I could be and was given an iv filled with Pitocin to get things going.  It didn't.  I sat there and I sat there, but nothing happened.  Not one teeny weeny contraction.  Dr. Kari Lawrence came in and broke my water.  That did it.  My previous three deliveries were natural, unmedicated, painful.  Estelle's was especially painful and I didn't want a repeat of that so...

Every human being is an individual.  Everyone knows that.  Even identical twins have subtle physical and personality differences.  Teachers vary, just as their students vary, just as snowflakes vary.  Think of that.  No two snowflakes are exactly the same.  Think of a teacher with a classroom of 35 students.  Think of the number of teachers any given student has throughout his/her elementary, secondary and college years.  Teachers come and go like the ebb and flow of the tide.  Many do so without making much of a difference in the landscape of a child's life.  Others leave a beautiful ripple extending a lifetime.  Still others leave a damaging scar on the heart of a child. Teachers are authority figures.  They are experts.  They are ignorant. They are loving and spiteful; passionate and dull; caring and ambivalent; influential and forgotten.  To a first grader they are a god. ...

Mothers do many things each day throughout a child's life to keep him/her safe.  We scold a toddler for straying into the street; we make children wear helmets; we set curfews and make sure teenagers return safely; we put up baby gates and lock up cleaning supplies; we give our children vaccinations; we clean the house, wash hands and disinfect wounds; we hand out vitamins and herbs; we fight at mealtimes about eating vegetables and avoiding candy; we put up fences and trampoline enclosures; we provide swimming lessons and lifejackets; the list goes on and on and on and on and . . . As the mother of a child with three potentially fatal medical conditions, my quest for safety has been compounded many times over.  My 12 year old son, Taylor, was pretty much born with asthma.  When he was a toddler we discovered he was allergic to tree nuts and peanuts.  The peanut allergy is so severe that he could have a reaction to the mere smell of the stuff. So we read label...