Before I had children, I knew I wanted at least two of them.  I come from a family of three so three was a possibility, but definitely at least two.  Then I had Graham.  If you are a parent, you know that transition from childless couple to parents of an infant is a difficult one.  Throw into the mix an emergency c-section, a jaundiced baby, and problems with nursing and I can tell you it’s probably a blessing that I don’t really remember the first few months.

After the shock wore off and he started to sleep, I fell more in love with Graham every day.  By the time he was six months old, I could not imagine ever having another child.  It was partly that I felt like I just could not go back to newborn land again.  It was also partly that I could not imagine having enough love in my heart for two children.  My love for Graham was so overwhelming that I couldn’t picture him with a sibling.

When Graham was around a year, we had lunch one day at a kid-friendly spot.  Sitting next to us was a family of four.  Mom, dad, and two boys – ages five and three.  The boys were cute and watching them interact, a light bulb went on for me.  I pictured Graham at age five and of course I wanted there to be a three year old sibling sitting next to him.  And so, within six months, I got pregnant and at 20 weeks, found out that Graham was going to have a brother.

Once Spencer was born, I had another interaction with a family with two boys.  Spencer was a colicky baby and one of the only places he didn’t fuss was in the Bjorn.  I remember one day, on our way to the park, I was pushing Graham in the stroller and trying to simultaneously bounce and walk Spencer.  A mom and two boys came walking toward us, they were carrying shovels and all three of them were laughing.  As we made room for each other on the sidewalk, she gave me a sympathetic smile.

“How old are your boys?”, she asked me.
“2 and a half and 12 weeks.  How about yours?”
“Five and three.  Hang in there, it gets easier.”
“I’ve heard that.”

After they passed, I burst into tears.  At that point, I wasn’t sure I was going to make it another day, let alone a few years.

But I have made it and here are my boys ages five and three.  It is bittersweet.  Life is easier and yet more complicated.  Aside from a few nightmares and bloody noses, they sleep through the night without a peep.  They feed themselves, Graham even dresses himself and can put on his own shoes.  They play pretty nicely together with a major battle breaking out over a toy only every 15 minutes or so.  Their needs can mostly be communictaed through words.  But the simplicity and the snuggliness of babyhood is gone.  The quiet of a content baby is long gone.  (I am a quiet person and I think I got two of the noisiest boys on the planet.)

(This bloody nose was the result of the battle over a toy.  Apparently it was an accident that said toy got thrown at Spencer’s head.)

When Graham was a newborn, someone told us that the days pass slowly but the months go quickly.  Those months have become years.  It’s not like I have been waiting impatiently for my boys to be five and three – I savored every second of that 12 to 18 month phase.  But I’d like a little of that passed time back please.

(This is a post about my older son Graham.  I have written about him before both here and here.)

The kindergarten train will be leaving the station in the fall and we are trying to figure out how best to get on.  The rules, boundaries, and schools have all changed just this year in our neighborhood of Seattle.  A year ago we could have applied Graham to at least 4 public schools close to us and, if he had been accepted at any of them, the district would have bussed him there.  Our fair city is trying to implement a new plan in which children go to their neighborhood school instead of having multiple options.  I definitely agree with this philosophy.  Why have neighborhood schools at all if the kids are going to be bussed elsewhere?  It is a waste of time, resources, and gas.  But.  What if your “neighborhood” or “reference” school doesn’t actually exist?

This is the conundrum that we face.  Our school is called McDonald and it will not actually be a school until the day after Labor Day.  It is being created as I type.  Not only that, this as yet non-existent school will be housed in a temporary location until the current location (which is a short walk from our house) has been renovated.  In two years.

If I had just a regular old kid, this situation would make me a little nervous.  Kindergarten is huge.  Going to a technically non-existent school ups the anxiety.  Where are the teachers going to come from?  Who is going to be the principal?  Add into the mix that our child has some special needs and I am consumed by thoughts of kindergarten.  Will my child really get the services that he has rights to by law?  I have become that mom.  Well, not entirely.  I’m not going to meetings or writing letters to the governor.  I’m just worrying about Graham.

So, we’ve done some homework.  We’ve looked into several private schools – none of which seemed right – and we have asked a lot of questions about the public options.  Basically, there are three. One is to just go to McDonald.  One is to apply to our “option” school which is an alternative school and if he gets in, he would get bussed there.  The third option is that he will, as a special needs student, automatically get applied to a very special place called the EEU.  This is a mixed classroom of special needs and typically developing children and it has a tremendous reputation.  Acceptance is by lottery.  Seeing as there are ten slots for over 200 children, we are not holding our breath.  Plus, the EEU is kindergarten only, so we would be facing this whole problem again in a year anyway.

This is where it is a blessing to be a mellow person.  Given the choice between worrying and not worrying, I usually choose not.  Especially about things that are still off in the future and over which I have little control.  I do keep reminding myself that we are not locking in to a school until the end of time.  If we make a mistake, we can always correct it.  We have been on top of his issues since he was about 22 months old.  We will not let him slip through the cracks.

Some very good news that I can share is that during a teacher conference at the end of January, Graham’s developmental preschool teacher says that he is doing really well.  So well, in fact, that she without question recommends that he attend a “regular” kindergarten.  There are special programs in a few schools around the city which are known as “transitional” kindergarten classes.  They are for children who are technically old enough but not ready enough to join their peers.  At the end of a year, they either go on to first grade or they go to a regular kindergarten.  His teacher thinks that is not the place for him.  That with the services he is entitled to, he can function, and perhaps even thrive, in a regular class.

(I cannot tell you how amazing it is to sit before your child’s teacher and his speech therapist and to have them tell you, several different times, what a nice kid – what a great kid – you have.  To hear the hope and certainty in their voices.  To know that there are two more people rooting for him.)

More good news is that Graham learned to ski.  I wondered about this.  He is kind a timid kid and his biggest challenge is with receptive language.  His hearing is fine but he doesn’t process language the same way you and I do.  He does best if someone is right on his level talking to him.  So, I wasn’t sure how ski lessons were going to go.  We considered doing private lessons for him but they were prohibitively expensive.  Thankfully, the week we were in Sun Valley things were very quiet.  We signed him up for group lessons for two days and he had the teacher all to himself.  He went on the chairlift and was full on going down the mountain in snow-plow form in 2½ days.

Before the holidays, a teacher in Graham’s other preschool pulled me aside.  She brought out this drawing that Graham had done.  She told me she was looking at a ruler with him and that he wanted to draw it.  Graham has always been fascinated by letters and has known his alphabet for a long time.  He has been able to write his name for over a year.  But, while he knows his numbers, I’ve never seen him write them.  She told me she watched as he traced the ruler and then carefully copied down what he saw.

If you have read my earlier posts about Graham, I probably don’t have to tell you that tears came to my eyes when I saw this ruler.  Only some of the numbers are backwards and he fit them all on.  Sometimes I wonder what is going on in that little head of his.  I wonder what is going in and what is sticking.  I wonder why he can’t seem to grasp very simple concepts and yet can write numbers from one to twelve (and beyond) on his first shot.  I think about all the millions of things that he needs to learn before he is launched out into the world.  I worry how he can go to college if he can’t learn to tie his shoes.  Or he can never make sense of the concept of brother and sister and he calls most women “him”.

But this ruler.  He just looked at it and it all clicked.  I was reminded that, during his testing, he was able to identify numbers that he had never seen before.  They asked him to find “84″ and I watched his face as he scanned his choices and mouthed “eight four” and chose correctly.  I never taught him that.  At that point, he couldn’t count past 20.  These amazing things he does from time to time give me so much hope.  We drove by a small museum in Seattle the other day and he said, “Remember – we got pictures there.”  Yes, we did some family photos with a friend who is a photographer and we parked right in front of that museum.  We did those photos for Spencer’s first birthday.  That was two years ago.  He not only remembered something that happened when he was barely three years old – he knew exactly where it happened and recognized it.

And one more thing.  When he was done carefully filling in all the numbers on the ruler, he told his teacher he thought it looked like a whale, so he filled in the fins.  Kindergarten, we’ll see you in September.

Oh no.  It can’t be.  You can’t be three.  Three is a big boy (as you are fond of telling me).  Three is not a baby anymore.  You will still give me snuggles and kisses but mostly only when you are tired or sick.  You are busy and happy and a complete and utter delight.  You are strong willed and funny.  You are never without a truck, digger, or car, and sometimes all three.  You say “hepadopter” for helicopter and it makes me laugh every time.  Sometimes you say, “I wuv you Mama” and it makes me want to cry.  You say “mommy” or “mama” about 2,000 times a day which sometimes makes me want to scream.  You love breakfast and snacks but you can take or leave dinner.  You are soothed by playing with the seam of your mattress.  Every single time I put you in your crib this is our exchange.

You:  “I play with my seam?”
Me: “Yes my sweet angel.”
You: “I put my thumb in my mouth?”
Me:  “Yes, my sweet boy.”
You:  “You said angel.  That’s silly.”

Oy.

But you can’t be three.  Wasn’t it just yesterday that you were this person?

Oh yes, and just another plug for vegetarianism.  Those thighs came from a diet of breast milk only.  Vegetarian mama breast milk.

Here in the Dana Treat household, we have big celebrations on both Christmas Eve and Christmas.  I am Jewish, so that may seem strange.  But friends of my parents starting including us in their Christmas dinner when I was just three years old and, aside from a few years when I was out of town, I have gone to their house ever since.  There are many traditions that I look forward to – champagne cocktails, Marilyn’s cheeseball, and a wonderful dinner that is essentially the same as our Thanskgiving feast.  I always sit next to Tom, Marilyn’s husband, because when I was a little girl, I thought he was the greatest (he is pretty great).  After the dinner is over, Marilyn opens up the windows and the guys smoke cigars while the women try to escape the stench.

Over the years, we have started our own Christmas Eve tradition.  It is my parents’ anniversary (42 years!) and I always cook a big meal for them since they have never really been able to go out to celebrate.  Yes, hotel restaurants are usually open but they long ago decided they would rather eat a meal that I have cooked.  Because that night is one of the only times we can all seem to get together in the month of December, that is when we open our presents for each other – regardless of when Hanukkah falls.  We have taken to calling it Hanumass.

Our dinner was good – I made it a point to use some of the bounty from our CSA so we had dishes featuring beets, parsnips, and brussels sprouts.  I made two desserts and ice cream because I am crazy that way.  We ended up only eating one of the desserts (a Pecan Gingerbread tart that I thought wasn’t much good) and my mom took the Eggnog Poundcake for us to share tonight.  I do all the cooking in our house but I have to say, Randy sets a mean table. 

One of the things that Randy brings from his family tradition (in addition to requesting sauerkraut at both Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner), is the spirit of hospitality.  And for parties at our house, that means a well-stocked bar.

Most of our friends are beer and wine drinkers, but Randy always sets it up anyway.  I tease him about it but the truth is, it makes me happy.  We both love to entertain and nothing says party like a bar.

I hope you and your family are celebrating with one another and enjoying the season.