The Birthday Boy

Twenty-seven years ago our lives changed dramatically: our first child was born. We lived in Jacksonville where I had gotten my first public school teaching job. It was a ghetto school and the kindergartners walked in from the surrounding neighborhood. During my pregnancy, I had been exposed to German measles by a student in my class. Technology was not what it is now and after a very long labor, it was a relief to find him perfect, save his cone-head! Bless his heart, his head filled in the little elf hat they put on him in the delivery room: he had dropped into the birth canal early. I am glad to say that was a very temporary condition. He developed jaundice and they kept him in St. Vincent's for a week before we could take him home. I was released and so we drove back and forth for a few days and nights. It was a hard time.

When he was six weeks, we moved back to Tallahassee. My brother came and helped us load the truck. My sister and her husband and daughter came to Tallahassee to help unload.

Our darling baby would transform into a demon every night for weeks with the dreaded colic. He screamed inconsolable for hours. It is a wonder we kept him!

We are so glad we did. He grew into a fine, handsome, gifted boy that always left a good impression. Then he grew into a man of whom we could not be more proud. By far the smartest thing he ever did was to ask his K to be his life's partner ---and thereby giving us a marvelous daughter.