… I gave birth to my middle son, my Evan. He came out C-Section like all my babies (I can grow them, I just can’t birth them!). But he also came out unable to breath on his own, so he was in the NICU for about a day. Which made him my EASIEST birth! lol. Cuz I got to read in the hospital and do nothing but recover for 24 hours.
To see him I had to hobble (C-Section!) to the NICU (military hospitals don’t give you wheel chairs cuz you can’t sue them!) only to find him with his head under a hard plastic hood to feed him oxygen. And he was crying which just tore my heart out. I couldn’t hold him, he needed comfort, and he couldn’t even suck his thumb because of the hood. Which I could see he wanted to do as his little arm kept trying to breach the hood.
I had to leave. I couldn’t do anything, I couldn’t watch it, I couldn’t fix it, I could only do one thing. Get back into my bed & heal. Next time I visited we convinced the staff to let him breastfeed. My mother held an oxygen tube to his nose so his saturation wouldn’t go down and when they put him into my arms I had to be careful of all the wires attached to him and me.
Happy Birthday Boy!
Like the true foodie he grew up to be, he practically attacked! He nursed like a champ but still had to go back under the oxygen. But he got off it soon enough and we went home where he met his older brother who was almost 2 years old. And instantly fell in love with him!
Watching that cool moving toy dance back and forth across the room motivated Evan to scoot crawl at 4month, cruise the furniture walk at 5 months and walk at 9 months. He was a fat bruiser of a baby who was fearless & happy with a sunny personality.
He stayed that way all the way up until he began school. Where for some reason his natural shyness kicked right in. And it increased every year. Perhaps it was the introduction of video games but he never really watched or played them very much. He was more interested in Legos & Connects & action figures. But both of those types of things are sedentary.
Now he is twelve. Last year he grew his self esteem by standing up to bullies. It was an all year process. This year he enters Middle School. Where he’ll have more irritating kids to deal with AND the joy of going from classroom to classroom. And since he most likely has a small learning disability (so small its impossible to diagnose, but I have it & so does my mother) school is a huge challenge that he’s been skating through since kindergarten.
His is entering puberty & maturing before my eyes. He’s legally able to stay home by himself now and he treasures it whenever I allow it. When asked what he wanted to do for his birthday he replied, “I want to stay home by myself. For the whole day.”
I agreed. Because 2 years after he was born I gave birth to his younger brother who took hero worship of his Evan to extreme heights. Since that time, Evan has never really been alone!
Although I did insist he do a few things like laundry & sort some stuff for the privilege of having a day off. (off even from the gym, lol!) He whole-heartedly agreed!