Just Call Me Jake

Got some good advice from a new friend today. She said just write. So I pulled out one of my very first posts ever. One that I never posted. And I'm adding a little to it and keeping some of it. I started this blog to practice writing, and then got all control freak perfectionistic and didn't post much.

So, here's how I was going to start this blog, and how I was going to describe my oldest, whom up until now you've known as Diamond, but who lately said to me, "It's ok, Mom, just call me Jake."

I think it's incredibly hard to describe yourself. You don't want to sound like the Christmas letter, "This year Andrea cured cancer and won the Nobel prize for crockpot fanatics." You also don't want to mislead, "The jeans in my closet are size 10". (That's why they're in the closet; the ones on my body are 14s). You don't want boring third person, but starting most sentences with "I" gets boring, too. So maybe I'll tell you about my family first...

My oldest we will call Camo-boy, for his love of all things camouflage. When I put him to bed at night in his camo pj's, under his army green sheets, with his camo fleece blanket, he disappears. He's almost 12. And just a delight. He's brilliant (there I go...sounding like the Christmas letter, but it's actually true.) He's got a quick mind and a dark sense of humor. He has a need to know how everything works, and WHY. Take this example; he was TWO. "Mom, tell me how the vacuum works." Ok, you plug it in, and then step on this button, and then it sucks up the dirt. He patiently says, "Yes, I know THAT. How does it WORK?" Good thing hubby is an engineer. I can explain some things, but how suction works, or the combustion engine, or a shotgun are a bit beyond me. I can find the derivative of any function, integrate most of them, and have good people skills. Engineering, however, not so much my thing. Camo-boy loves to read. We read some of the same books (like the Harry Potter books~see, you learned something about me. I'm a Christian, AND I read Harry. Harry rocks. I'd love to be able to summon objects from across the room and hide under an invisibility cloak) Camo-boy loves video games (I mentioned he's 12, right?) He's also an author. He writes stories all the time

And that' all the further I got. And that post sat there. It's original date stamp said 1/28/09. I didn't post anything until May. So maybe I'll finish it now. After all, I'm on bed rest. What else is there to do? Amanda AND JoAnn are beating me in Scrabble...

Jake is now thirteen. His birthday was Friday and it was a special day. All children are an incredible gift from God, but we didn't think we were going to keep Jake. (We'd already lost our first child to miscarriage at nine weeks.) Jake was eight days late, and it had already been a long and arduous fifteen hour labor. I was exhausted. I'll spare you some of the chilling details, but after suction assist, his head was delivered and we discovered the cord was around his neck twice and his shoulders (which maybe someday will make an excellent front line man, or perhaps center for the NFL) were NOT going to fit. As I was fading in and out of consciousness and the room was filling with more and more anxious medical people dressed in scrubs, I just had this feeling of , "Ok, that was it. He's gone and I didn't even get to meet him." What followed next we'd all rather not recall, but Jacob Thomas was born with an apgar of 1 (heart beat) and whisked to NICU. And he lived. I met him many hours later, got to hold him the next day, and on Easter Sunday 1997, I brought my resurrected child home as others were celebrating the resurrection of our Lord Jesus. A special day.

This boy who the doctors and therapists and well-meaning social workers said would have permanent "lasting effects" of the oxygen deprivation and "trauma of such a delivery" is right as rain. He's my boy who lived. He rides a bike, a skateboard, roller blades and a snowboard. He makes good grades (though he's driving me NUTS trying to home-school him). He loves to cook, try new foods, and build things. (His k'nex roller coaster is in my "pretty room", I'm not thrilled...) He loves to torture his brother to tears, yet is very respectful of his grandparents. He will mouth off to me, yet share the yearnings of his heart the next moment. He's a normal wonderful, irritating, temperamental, insightful teenager. And he's here.

He's the boy who lived. Just call him Jake.