First Day of School, Anxiety and Growing Up

Last Monday was Jeff's first day back as a teacher, and Jericho's first day back-to-school as a big 6th grader.

It was also Jericho's first year in a new school.

It was a 'coming of age', of sorts, and he seemed to sense it as much as we did.

In recent weeks, we've had some issues crop up that showed us our boy was in fact growing up.

It seems he finally 'got' that there comes a time where a boy needs to choose the path he's going to take in life because it's the right one, even when it's not always the popular one, and that in doing so he begins to mature and turn into a young man.

As part of preparing him for this auspicious occasion, I'd printed out a Bible verse for him:

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I
reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind
me. ~1 Corinthians 13:1

When he read it, he smiled and promptly tacked it to his bedroom wall. And of his own accord, memorized and recited it to us a couple of nights later.

It seemed he was ready to assume the mantle of responsibility, and we couldn't have been more proud of him.

Switching school districts this year was a huge decision for our family. Jericho had attended his old school from Kindergarten through the 5th grade.

The K - 3rd grade pictures haven't yet been scanned, but in case you were wondering, in each one was a total frumpmama a gorgeous, svelte young woman who couldn't possibly be old enough to have such a handsome young son.

After the baby was born, however, frumpmama took control.



4th Grade



5th Grade

That old school was a wonderful one where we had built a lot of good relationships and it was hard to say goodbye, but with gas prices being what they've been and knowing we would soon be buying a home, we knew it was time.

Incidentally, this will also be the first year that father and son will be in the same district, on the same school-year calendar (which also means the same vacation schedule! Woo hoo!) and for the first time ever, on the same campus.

Not every kid gets to go to school with their dad.

However, there was one slight snafu.

One little problem that threatened to put a damper on the whole plan.

Jericho gets very nervous about first days.

First anythings, really, especially being thrust into a situation where he doesn't know what to expect.

He's normally a very compliant, easy-going kid, but there have come a few occasions where were had to make him do things against his will, pushing him to take that first step, just so he'd see that they weren't as 'scary' as he thought them to be.

Things like starting Little League, Soccer and going on rides at amusement parks.

And once he tried them out, he realized it wasn't so bad and actually grew to love those things.

For that reason and because we knew he'd fret and worry away the last couple of days of his already short summer vacation, we tricked him into believing that his first day of school was really just a fun, meet-your-teachers orientation day.

His arrival at school was non-eventful. He seemed genuinely excited about being there.

On the way to the gate, unable to let the charade go on any longer, I came clean and told him it was really his first day of school.

He laughed, amazed that we'd been able to pull that one over on him.



He seemed nervous, but it was more a case of typical first day jitters.

I hugged him and reminded him of all the things we've been praying about with regard to this anxiety and told him to just trust the Lord to get him through the day. That this was all part of growing up...becoming a young man. Gaining victory in difficult areas.

He flagged it all off with a semi-cofident, "I'm okay, mom."



And marched off to class.

I left feeling better than ever about leaving him on a first day.

Which was nothing short of a miracle, because there was a season where his anxiety caused a lot of problems for him. Cotton-mouthed, "I'm not sure I can go through with this" kind of anxiety.

It was something he came by honestly enough, I suppose. I tend to struggle with being a worry-wart nervous-wreck of a hypochondriac a bit anxious at times, though I have tried very hard over the years not to let the kids pick up on my own worries.

With Jericho, however, this seemed to become more pronounced the further I got in my pregnancy with Judah.

Around the same time that Jericho (at 8 1/2 years old) finally realized that I would have to go to the hospital to have the baby.

And had heard a couple of stories about how sometimes babies and even mommies didn't come home from that place. Just like his Papa (grandpa) a few years before.

Jericho would rather go to the dentist than the hospital.

And he began to dread the approaching due date, fearful about all the bad things that could happen instead of being excited that he would soon have a long-awaited baby brother.

A little over a week before Judah was due, we sat in the desert heat (under an awning) watching Jericho's soccer matches at a day-long tournament. When we got home that night, Jeff worried that the heat may have been too much for me in my very pregnant state, but I'd been drinking lots of water and seemed to be fine.

We had company in town, and the next morning I felt good enough to spend most of the day visiting with them.

However, late that afternoon I began to feel all the symptoms of a horrible flu coming on, complete with aches, chills and a mild fever.

That evening, I began to fear dehydration and the effects that could have on the baby and called my doctor, who directed me to go straight to the hospital where they put me on IV fluids and a fetal monitor and kept me for observation.

After a few hours of labor pains, they found that baby Judah appeared to be showing signs of possible distress, and so they induced me and eventually opted on an emergency c-section.

Hours later, Jericho, Grandma and the great aunt and uncle that were visiting came to the hospital. Jericho was thrilled to be first to hold his new baby brother, and was reassured that mom was going to be just fine.



I was told we'd be checked out in just a couple of days to recover at home, and everything seemed to be all sunshine and roses.

Later that evening, after being moved to a recovery room (and shortly after Jeff had gone home to get a shower and rest), I fed Judah and a nurse came to put him into his bassinet beside my hospital bed. He was making sweet little baby sounds, eventually dozed off and my room got quiet.

My body was screaming for sleep, but at one point I glanced over and noticed that his blanket didn't appear to be moving up and down with his breathing. I could barely reach the blanket and pulled it away, and he looked still. Too still. His color didn't look right, either.

I panicked.

Having just had a c-section, I was in excruciating pain (the nurses had ignorantly somehow overlooked giving me anything at all for the pain since the c-section), and without the use of stomach muscles, I couldn't sit up to climb out of my bed on my own...because believe me, I tried.

I was utterly and completely helpless, and the little remote box with the button to summon a nurse had somehow slipped out of my reach between the mattress and the bed frame.

I screamed for a nurse, one of which came rushing in. I explained, pointing, and she grabbed him up, saw that his little jaw seemed to have locked and that he'd turned purplish blue, and (thankfully) knew immediately what to do to get him to breathe again...while I fell to pieces in my bed, a severely sleep-deprived, blubbering and freaked out hormonal mess.

I managed to get through to Jeff by phone, and he came rushing back to the hospital. I continued to bawl my eyes out for the next few hours after my baby was whisked away. Jeff went to the NICU to wait there for word, but it was after hours, and nobody would tell us what was happening.

We were finally informed that Judah seemed fine, but would need to spend a few days in NICU for observation and testing to be sure everything was okay.

Jeff was in there with him in my place, so that I could try and get some sleep. By this time, I'd gone without for nearly 72 hours and was beyond exhaustion.

Meanwhile, I thought of poor little Jericho over at grandma's house, most likely silently worrying himself into a dither while all the adults that were there spoke in hushed tones about what was going on at the hospital, and phone calls were made to our church prayer chain and some local relatives and friends, asking for prayer...and I cried some more.

The next morning, aunt Tammy brought Jericho back to the hospital to see his baby brother again, but they couldn't go into the NICU.

I made it a point to get up and wait for them outside the NICU so that he could see that I was doing better, but he had to settle for a view of his brother through the NICU window. Judah was hooked to all kinds of monitors and machines.



Looking at this photo, I can still see from the slight tilt of his head that he was anxious, fearing the worst, and it always makes me choke up a little remembering the moment and all that must have been going through his mind at that time.

A couple of days later, I was discharged to recover at home, but Judah was kept for a couple more days until some tests came back. This seemed to help assure Jericho that things were getting better.

A couple of days later, we picked up Judah, and settled into a good routine.

At long last, it seemed that Jericho could finally breathe peacefully again, and we saw his happy face again.

Doctors never did figure out what caused Judah to turn blue that day. We know only that his jaw locked momentarily preventing him from breathing. Whether it was a slight jaw malformation or jaw muscles that clenched funny after nursing, we'll never know. I still thank the Lord for causing me to look over and double-check to be sure he was okay when I couldn't see the rise and fall of his blanket.

We're also thankful that it wasn't anything serious, and that he's grown to be quite healthy and robust. As it turned out, Judah wasn't sick once in his first two years of life. He has had some sicknesses since, but those have been blessedly shortlived.

Long-story-short, after this whole experience, it took quite a while but Jericho eventually began to outgrow the anxiety issues, and only a couple of other times did we again see any hint of them...when he got the leading role in play at school, and when he had his first days of school the following years.

Which was why we chose to deliberately deceive him about his first day of school this year. We didn't want the poor kid fretting and worrying away his last couple of days of an already shorter than usual summer break.

We needn't have worried.

The night before, he laid out his backpack then went to bed. And slept soundly all night.

Shortly before the cricket incident, I took this photo because I saw that little Judah had put his "pack-ack" right beside big brothers on the sofa.



Curious, to see what Judah deemed important enough to take to "'Cool", I looked inside and found a long toy snake. (Pack-ACK, indeed!)

Because, you know, every boy needs a snake with them for their first day of school.

Jericho went to great pains to pick out his clothes for this 'orientation' day, and even wheedled us into a couple of not-usually-allowed treats for his lunch.

Not even Jeff's starting back that day (on the same campus) or mentioning that grandma would be joining us for our traditional 'first day of school' family photo session again seemed to phase him.

That morning, Jericho was up and at 'em, dashing around to get ready, and then we took our annual pictures with grandma.



This year's photo...our big 6th grader.

Jericho came home that afternoon with a huge smile on his face, full of wonderful experiences from his first day.

One of which involves special privileges.

Being a teacher's kid who has to hang around before and after hours, he was told that during the times that he's not working on homework he may go to the office or library to help as a T.A. "I get a name badge and everything!" he proudly informed me.

And here he was on his first Friday...our little man.



Yes, with the Lord's help, it appears he's finally conquered the anxiety.

And gets to ride back and forth to school with his dad.

It's win-win for everyone.

Well, everyone except Judah, who really, really wants to go to school with big brother and daddy.