Week 260: Goodbye, Miss Katie

This year, for the first time, the kids expressed interest in having a joint birthday party. Being the top-notch organizers that we are, and having very little else going on in our household at the present moment, Papa Bear and I looked at the calendar about 10 days ago and realized that there was exactly one weekend left in the summer that we could have the party. Fortunately, doing things on short notice does substantially limit the amount of time one can spend sweating the details. We sent around a quick Evite to some local friends, put together a cake, found a bottle of juice in the basement that may or may not have been left over from some previous occasion, bought a dozen bagels, and voila. One party. The kids loved it, and Lemon was only slightly confused about the party not being on his actual birthday.

The theme of the party ("three, five, we survived") was derived from something another mom with closely spaced children told me. I was buying some baby item or another from her when Lime was an infant. When she asked about the particulars of our children, I told her their sexes and ages, she said, wisely, "Ah." After a moment, she followed up with, "Well, if you make it to three and five, you'll know you've survived." And, my friends, getting ahead of myself by only 6 short days, here we are. On the cusp of having survived. I can hardly believe it.





In another sign that summer is drawing to a close, today was Lemon's very last day of food school. After a year and a quarter, I feel like he is leaving it in a good place. I certainly had my doubts about it along the way, and almost threw in the towel several times, but I'm glad I didn't. He learned a tremendous amount from his teacher, Miss Katie. She was able to teach him so many things, and give him the confidence to approach foods without fear or anxiety. Eating enough by mouth to become totally independent of the tube is still a huge challenge--and honestly one that I don't really focus on at all any more, especially knowing that there are plenty of adults with CF who also use a tube. But, if Lemon ever decides that he wants to take on that challenge for himself, he has the tools to try. More importantly, he has the tools to go to school and actually know what to do if he feels hungry. He has the tools to go to someone else's house for a visit or a party and partake in a social meal without worrying about it.

Lemon has not had a lot of definitive goodbyes in his young life, probably only one or two that he can even really remember or process. But boy did he understand this one. He managed to keep it together until we got to the car at which point he burst into tears and cried most of the way home. At one point, he stopped crying for a second to report, "Mama, I'm so sad there are boogers coming out of my nose!" This from the child who used to beg me to stop food school altogether because Miss Katie would push him to try new things and eat more bites. I guess she won him over in the end, and we owe her a big debt of gratitude for her hard work and persistence. Goodbye, Miss Katie, we will miss you!