One Beginning, One End (Sorta')

Henry's first day of school was today.  A special school, of course, given his diagnosis.  I learned quickly what the letters SCI and SXI meant, and am rather thankful that Henry's condition is only SCI.

• SCI: severe cognitive impairment
• SXI: severe multiple impairments (which includes physical)

Henry was, of course, unhappy at the beginning of the day, but his teacher called home to give an update on how he was doing.  After he saw the playground equipment outside, he apparently calmed down, and then started playing with all the balls available in the room, as well as the lighted musical toys.  He ate all of his lunch and even drank from a sippy cup (and if you've been following along in Henry's development path, that in and of itself is huge).

Lori, however, was a wreck this weekend :)

And why shouldn't she have been?  Her baby boy was leaving home by himself, without either of us. Strangers were taking him away and managing him all day.  I think this is a very reasonable worry, even if it is drawn more from emotion than reason.

Because in matters of parent-child relationships, reason sometimes flies out of the window and sails away on the updrafts of remembering their newborn photos.  Hell, Evie is -- currently -- totally Daddy's Girl, so much so that when Lori and I were standing in the middle of the living room, my arm around her to comfort her in preparation for today, Evie came up to us and pushed Lori away so that she could raise her arms to be picked up by me.

Which, as many of my female friends will giggle over (as well as my male friends who have daughters), was totally expected!

Anyway, Henry has reached this new milestone.  This was the first day of a journey that will last a likely 23 more years.  I have no idea how he'll grow, how he'll evolve, and what he'll learn, but I'm betting that he'll grow, evolve, and learn a lot.  Despite our own relative intelligence and wisdom as smart people, we are not trained in the arts of educating special-needs children.  For this, we need the experts and specialists.

To bookend that, I myself am getting closer to the end of my education.  Or at least, these immediately obvious traffic stops.   After tonight's (mind-numbing) class, I'm 3 away from completing the first half of the last semester of my undergraduate career.  After next week, Summer Session I will be done.  A week after that, Summer II begins with my final class as an undergraduate.

In August, I will be done.

I began my college efforts in the fall of 1991, as a dutiful high school graduate.  My first semester was excellent.  My second semester, though, as an arrogant 18/19-year-old was not so excellent (in fact, it was downright miserable, and I only passed one class by 0.1 over the bare minimum; I think my professor took pity on me for at least making the effort to submit make-up work after not even showing up for the majority of that semester).

I'll be concluding my 4-year university program after a total of 24 years of trying.

Henry will have two weeks of school to begin, then with about two weeks off.  After that, he'll slowly be ramping up into the traditional fall schedule.  By then, I'll have completed my bachelor's degree and begun my master's program.

(and yes, the Star Wars reference has crossed my mind more than once; let's not dwell on it too long, okay?)

I'm not sure how I'll leverage my education with my experience, but given both of those, plus what Henry (and maybe Evie) will be experiencing, I'm wondering if I should look for opportunities to incorporate technology and training in the special education world.  If I can somehow do that where I currently work, that'd be the best of all worlds.

Not sure how that degree of specialization would be sustainable but I guess I'll find out, right? :)

But even today, as Lori and I greeted the bus when it pulled up to our house to drop off our baby boy after his first day of school, I wonder what kind of journey is ahead of him and what he'll experience.  As hard as it is to hand off our kid to someone else, at the same time, I'm really hoping that the social aspect will be beneficial.

Henry's 3rd birthday is next weekend, and we're not planning a birthday party for him.  The chief reason: he doesn't have any friends to invite.  He doesn't know anybody.  That realization hit me hard last week.  Even if we threw a party, it wouldn't be for him.  It'd probably be more for us, with our adult friends (not that that's a bad thing, but I still have to pretend that I'm a good father and think about Henry here ;) ).

As Henry takes these first steps into the next phase of childhood, we have to end our phase of Henry being our home-bound infant/toddler.  He needs this growth opportunity, and we can't hold him back.  And similarly, we need this growth opportunity, so that we grow as parents.  As I alluded in my last post, it's still a question, given his situation, of how much space do/can we give, and how much sheltering/support do we give.  That's a dilemma we have to resolve ourselves.

We don't know where/when that journey of his will lead.  Just as I never expected my college career to last longer than many of my classmates have been alive.