Noah’s surgery on Friday didn’t happen. He had a negative reaction to the first drug they gave him as an anesthetic. He started coughing violently when he should have been falling asleep and aspirated stomach fluids.The anesthesiologist shoved a tube down his throat and suctioned him because pneumonia sucks.

They did not proceed with the surgery. Because he persisted in coughing blood up all day by the evening the anesthesiologist called to check in and just about begged us to go get a chest x-ray because his reaction was extreme and unusual. We did. We left the house around 8pm and got home around 3ish. That was after waking up at 4 in the morning to get ready to leave at 5am for the surgery.

That was a long day. The kids slept through most of the ER wait time. They are little troopers.

Noah is fine. The blood was probably from throat irritation from the quick intubation.

The crazy part is Noah is going to try again. Because yeah, he wants to have more kids. This journey we are on blows my mind.

I slept late today, Saturday and napped through a lot of the day. I have surgery on Monday to fix my nose. Oh yay. And on Tuesday I have an appointment for genetic testing so that my med doctor can get a better idea of why I metabolize drugs so weird.

Oh it’s an exciting week. I’ve made painting progress! The bathroom remodel is going!

Just keep moving. I’ll drop some balls, sure, but I’ll keep enough in the air.

Also: Eldest Child has reached the age of academics and is… cooperating. Just cheerfully adapting to math and reading and writing and specific science study being part of the routine. It’s just another chore. Sure, no trouble.

Youngest Child keeps asserting “I’m not old enough for academics yet. I don’t have to yet.”

Yes, yes I know. I didn’t make your sibling at six. At seven I start suggesting occasional academic work. At eight I start insisting. You are on track kiddo, don’t fret.

Eldest Child has gone through and demonstrated proficiency on almost all the first grade skills I was certain I needed to see mastery of in the last month or so. There is a little bit left to cover, but not much. She’ll be done in September. I think the second grade skills I’m worried about will take us 2-3 months. If she keeps up this trend she’ll be working on fourth grade skills by the end of third grade. Having entirely skipped academics for years when her peers were being forced.

God damn I’m feeling validated.

Are my children perfect? First: define “perfect” but…. probably not. They are little shitheads. Like they should be. But I like them. I like them so very much. They are learning things in the ways I hoped they would be able to learn. I started planning for this for years before I had read research to back up my perspective. I totally went and looked for confirmation about my methods. I have found it in research and in my personal experiences. Sure I’ve read research saying it is impossible too.

I just… pay less attention to that research. Like most people.

There are a lot of people who were happy to tell me that “coddling” my oldest child by providing as much cuddling and nursing as she wanted will prevent her from ever being independent. I’ll stop laughing in a few years.

Does she want to go to school yet? No. But she knows that she will want to in a few years. She already can see the ways she will want to pull away and be independent. We talk about it. I feel so lucky that my kids get to pull away as they feel the desire instead of having to adapt to the expectations of others.

I need to order a few more books. Apparently there is a new trend in gifted education focusing on children as asynchronous learners. Hey, gimme that confirmation. I was way ahead in some areas and dramatically behind in others; the same is true of my children. Strangely I would say that Youngest Child is less asynchronous. Kiddo is not as startlingly advanced but also has fewer areas of noticeable trouble.

Eldest Child… she’s all over the map developmentally. They say of early potty learners that the children aren’t trained the parents are. I would say that Eldest Child hasn’t yet been trained in how to accommodate all of her asynchronous learning needs… but I’ve been trained. She and I talk about how my expectations of her are sometimes very advanced and strict… because she is capable in that area. When I talk to her about my expectations on different stuff she rarely indicates she thinks I’m pushing hard. When she does I’m happy to chill out.

Things like not expecting her to sit still very often. That’s been a serious thing. It’s why she didn’t move into a seat belt booster seat till eight. She wasn’t able to sit still earlier than this in a way that made me feel comfortable in a car. Which isn’t to say that I feel all children must be in a five point harness till eight.

But my kid’s developmental maturity is asynchronous. There are areas where she is impulsive in ways that can be a serious problem and I come down like a box of hammers because I had the same impulsive tendencies and I can point at the specific problems I’ve had for the rest of my life because of that impulsiveness.

Sometimes I seriously wonder if I’m hurting her because I’m not letting her fuck up in all the ways I fucked up so she won’t be learning the lessons I learned.

We all fuck up our children.

I’m not a perfect mother. Not by any measure. But I am getting to parent in the most ideal circumstances I can imagine. That’s just fucking luck. Yeah I prepared for it… but I’ve known other people who prepared and didn’t end up where they wanted to go.

Noah’s willingness to adapt to me and to provide the life I want to have is not something one can plan around. Holy shit I’m lucky.

Noah continues to be the only person I really ought to look to for determining my wacky ass course in life. He will be the only one walking the path with me.

Thank you, honey.