Happy Birthday!

19 years ago today, I found myself in the car at 2:00 AM driving my very pregnant wife to the hospital in a spring rain.  She woke me shortly after 1:00 to tell me that she thought that her water had broke.  Once we got to the emergency room, we discovered that, in fact, her water had broke, but she wasn't quite ready to deliver.  So they took her to a room, and we waited.

After a few hours, they made the decision to induce labor.  It took a while to get the dosage right.  At first, they gave her too much of the drug and her contractions started too strongly and too quickly.  So, they backed off on the IV and my wife was able to get a little rest before all the real fun would begin.  Around 6:00-7:00 PM my wife started pushing in earnest.  Shortly before 9:00 my son entered the world.

It was without a doubt the proudest moment in my life.  The entire time my wife was pregnant, I steadfastly declared that I did not care one way or the other what the sex of our child was going to be.  One he came out and I was told we had a boy, I have to confess that my chest stuck out a little bit further.

Over the years, it has been quite an adventure.  From birth to about 2 years of age, our son appeared to be completely normal.  He was hitting all of his milestone markers on time and in a lot of cases early.  Then all of a sudden around his second birthday things changed.  His progress became delayed. We got him involved in early special education classes where a specialist from the school system came to the house a couple days per week.  By his 3rd birthday he started taking a bus to a school for children with special needs.

In the intervening years, there have been a lot of emotions and struggles.  There was a lot of denials about the  final diagnosis of autism.  I struggled a lot at times.  You see, I have always been considered a smarter than average person.  I was a nearly straight A student, always made the honor roll, and participated in talented and gifted programs.  I thought, "How could my child be mentally delayed?  He has my genes."

A few years ago, we made the difficult decision to try to get him into a residential school program.  It was one of the hardest decisions we ever made.  Several of the struggles and challenges of adjusting to this decision have been chronicled here on this blog.  It has been one of the best things that we ever did for our son.  At one point, I always thought that my son would live with us as long as we could care for him.  Now we look to the day when he will graduate in 2015 and enter a group home.

Today, we drove out to see him to celebrate his 19th birthday.  We decided that we would throw a little pizza party for him, his dorm mates, and the dorm staff.  One year ago, we couldn't get him to touch pizza.  The only thing he would eat was chicken, bacon, potato chips and Cheez-it crackers.  In fact, my wife and I couldn't eat pizza in front of him because he would gag.  Today, he ate six big slices of pizza, more than my wife and I combined.  We even offered him boneless wings and he chose more pizza.

Even with all of the progress he has made, he still has a long way to go.  For example, he still has not gotten to the point where he will have a bowel movement on the toilet.  I never really liked changing his diapers when he was a baby, changing Depends now isn't any fun either. He still has several undesirable behavioral issues.  He will drop to the floor if he doesn't want to do something.  He still hits at people and throws his glasses.  It has been a struggle and will probably always will.  I wouldn't change a thing.

Spring Break

My son came home today from his school for Spring Break.  He will be home for almost two weeks.  During his vacation from school, we have a lot of activities planned.  This weekend we will have a full weekend of Baysox games planned.  The weather is looking to be clear all weekend so it should be a great weekend of baseball, including Saturday when we celebrate his 18th birthday.

Over the next several days, I am not sure how often I will have the opportunity to update this blog.  I love having my son home, but when he is here, he tends to dominate my time and my laptop.  For example, this evening we spent most of the night playing games and watching videos on the internet.  It is one of his longer visits home, so I intend to make the most of it.

Happy Birthday, Son

Cover of The Aristocats (Special Edition)I am in a little bit better frame of mind tonight than I was last night.  To be perfectly honest, I was kind of moping around my office a little this morning.  I was still regretting it a little bit that I had not decided to take a vacation day to go visit my son at school to celebrate his 17th birthday.

My wife went out to the school today with some cupcakes, presents, and balloons for him so that he would have some special fun today.  She told me he was very excited to get the presents.  We had gotten him two Word Girl DVDs, a Spongebob Squarepants DVD, and Disney's The Aristocats.  He was particularly excited to get The Aristocats.  He had mentioned that he wanted it just before we took him back to school after his last break.

I was able to reach my wife on her cell phone shortly before she got to the school.  Usually, my son does not want to talk on the phone at all, but I told her that I wished I had taken off work to go out with her for his birthday and I wanted her to try to get him to talk on the phone so that I could wish him a happy birthday.  To my surprise and my delight, she was able to get him to talk on the phone for a little bit.

When he got on the phone, he didn't want to talk long, but he sounded very excited.  Usually, when he wants to tell you something, he phrases it as a question so that you will ask the question back to him.  The first words out of his mouth were, "Who is coming on the 19th?"  The 19th happens to be the day his spring break starts. I told him I did not know and asked who was coming on the 19th. He said, "Daddy is coming on the 19th."  So he is very excited and anticipating his next trip home.  Me too.

Kinda Sad

Image via WikipediaI am sitting here tonight watching a Washington Nationals game on television.  It is the first game that I have had the opportunity to watch.  As I begin writing this, the Nationals have a 3-0 lead over the Florida Nationals.  The one thing about my son being away at school is that I actually can watch what I want on television, when I want to watch it.  When he is home, we might start watching the game, but after a few minutes, he may switch it to another channel or play a video game.

Still, with my new found freedom of being able to watch the game from start to finish if I so desire, I am feeling somewhat melancholy tonight.  It is not the fact that he is away at school that has me feeling a little bit in the dumps tonight.  While we definitely miss him around the house, his being away at school has become more the norm than the exception.  I guess I have gotten somewhat used to him being gone, if that is possible.

The reason for my feeling blue has more to do with tomorrow.  Tomorrow is my son's 17th birthday, and I will not be with him for it.  It will be the first time that I have not been with him on his birthday.  I was in the hospital room with him the night he was born, and I have been with him every year since then.  My wife will be going out to the school tomorrow to take cupcakes for his class and to take birthday presents for him to open, so at least the day will be acknowledged.

Since my son has gone away to school, I have taken more days off than I usually do.  I almost always take off to go pick him up from school for breaks and to take him back to work after the break is over.  For that reason, I did not think about taking off on his birthday.  I did not think it would bother me to miss his birthday.  I was wrong.  It is times like these that make me wish he would speak on the phone so that I could at least talk to him and wish him a happy birthday.

A Good Birthday

I was going to let yesterday's Music Monday post be the last I mentioned of my birthday yesterday, but there were a couple of really cool things, at least to me, that happened yesterday.  Generally, I usually do not make a big deal about birthdays, not even milestone birthdays, or holidays.  Due to the fact that I don't usually make a big deal about these things, I am usually not taken by surprise.  I got a couple good ones yesterday.

See the picture in the post?  That was my birthday cake made by my sister-in-law; my wife's sister.  The bottles, including the big one in the middle of what looks like an ice bucket, are chocolate.  The ice bucket is four layers of red velvet cake covered in fondant.  The "ice" in the ice bucket are pieces of rock candy.  I was stunned when they pulled that cake out after dinner.

While the cake was impressive, my wife pulled off the biggest surprise of evening.  As she and I were walking into the restaurant to meet her family for dinner, I saw one of my best friends from high school and college in the restaurant talking with my mother-in-law.  She had looked in my cell phone while I was sleeping and looked up my friend's number and invited him to join us for the evening. 

The restaurant we went to was a local brew pub named DuClaw's.  I knew I would have a couple of beers, but for my meal I was debating whether or not to stick with my new eating plan or splurge.  I decided to go ahead and splurge by having one of their new menu items, a French Onion Kobe Beef Burger.  It was well worth it.  Of course I had to have a slice of the cake after dinner as it would have been impolite to do otherwise.

The evening ended with me calling the school to check on how my son has been doing.  He has been back at the school for two weeks.  His last week before his last break, and the two weeks since he has been back have been going well, which is a welcome relief. When I spoke to the person in the dorm, I was informed that he has been doing great.  Unfortunately, he had a small incident today where he threw his glasses and they broke.  He is due to get a new pair soon, but we found an old pair that my wife will take out to him tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Kevin Costner

Kevin Costner is celebrating his 53rd birthday today.  Since earlier this week, I posted a couple videos of Telly Savalas and William Shatner performing songs (I can't really call it singing) here is Kevin Costner with his band Modern West performing "Long Hot Night" on Opry Live.  All I can say is that I prefer his performance in "Bull Durham," "Field of Dreams," and "Tin Cup" to his performance here.  Though, he does do a better job than Savalas and Shatner, but that isn't saying much.