Monday morning, around 5:15 a.m., I was in insomnia mode, blogging, as is my wont, when I suddenly heard strange noises coming from the master bedroom, where the three children were sleeping.  I presumed it was Madeleine crying because I wasn't in bed, but as the noise drew closer, I realized it was something else.  Ian opened the door, coughing a bit but more inhaling and exhaling in a load, hoarse, strained gasp, and he said, "I can't breathe."

Of course, this had to happen the one weekend when Amy has been away  - her first overnight stay away from the children ever.   But when your child sounds like a barking Darth Vader and announces he can't breathe, you do more "doing" than anything else.  I dragged him onto the front porch, in the hopes that the coldish air would help him, which it didn't seem to do, then I raced around looking for my car keys, and finally I grabbed the phone and dialed 911.  The dispatcher - a pleasant-but-highly-focused woman - convinced me that the ambulance was worth waiting for - that I wouldn't be able to help Ian the way that they could en route to the hospital.  So Ian left in an ambulance, with a mask over his face, talking to a crew which seemed amused by his garrulousness, and I loaded up clothes and children and headed to the hospital in the mini-van.

When I got to the hospital, and they showed me to Ian's little room within the Emergency Room complex, he was lying in bed with a mask on, casually flipping through channels on the overhead TV as the doctor looked him over and the nurse stood by.  Far from asthma or allergies, they were talking about a "virus," which sent me for a tailspin until I found out that they were really talking about croup.  Apparently, children can really end with hospital stays for croup, but Ian's condition didn't warrant it.  They had administered some steroids to him through the mask, to get his respiratory tract fully open, and he was ready to go home by 10:30 a.m.  In my willful simplicity, I had packed his school things and planned to take him straight to school, but the hospital staff made it clear that rest was the order of the day.

But on the way home, Ian mentioned one compelling reason to stop by the school, far more important than anything academic or social.  Ian had been eyeing a Pokemon DVD in the school's lost and found, and apparently some weak-willed administrator told him that, if nobody were to come and claim it, then Ian could take it home on the last day of school.  I am very aware of this enticing offer, because Ian had been, for some time, counting the days until the end of the school year, not so much for the end of his academic duties, but more as a day of acquisition and subsequent electronic entertainment.  There's something especially desperate about bringing your boy from the Emergency Room to the office of his elementary school, on the last day of classes, to say, effectively, "He can't come to school today, because he's sick and possibly contagious, but we were wondering if he could snag someone else's Pokemon DVD from the lost and found, all the same."  And, because I know how vitally important this project was to Ian, that's pretty-much what we did.

The lady in the office was very understanding, and immediately looked into the status of the vaunted DVD.  But Ian also made an extra request, in a sweet, very low voice... maybe the office-lady could say goodbye to his teacher, Mrs. Lynch, for him.  At that point, she eagerly offered for him to go down to say goodbye herself, and then it occurred to her that we could also pick up all his things and his report card while we were there.  I was very glad to have this opportunity, because I felt really bad for Ian, missing the last day of school, since he takes school, and its culture, and the personalities of teachers and students, so seriously; I thought he needed a formal sign-off for second grade, and I also think that the last day of school is too much fun to miss out on entirely.  It would be cruel and unusual to miss the one day when everyone is mentally on some beach in Hawaii, after working all year for this single day of turnabout.

Ian eagerly led me through the cinderblock labyrinth of his sizeable, 70's-ish elementary school, past jubilant teachers and students, and into his own classroom, where children were milling about in no obvious pattern of learning or focus.  This is when the surprises came; school has changed a lot since the Boston Public Schools of the 1970's.  Ian greeted his teacher, a very jolly older lady with a youthful laid-backness about her, by sneaking up on her from behind and throwing his arms around her stomach in a mighty hug.  She responded well to this, and announced to the class, "Oh - here's Ian," at which point they cheered, and some clapped, and they stood around us in a semi-circle to see what was going on with Ian.  I quickly mentioned that there had been a croup-ish incident in the middle of the night, and we had come straight from the Emergency Room, but Ian wanted to say goodbye to everyone.  I was really stunned at how much affection the children seemed to feel for Ian - both boys and girls.  It made me think that the quality-of-life boost that I subjectively associate with New Hampshire livin', might actually have palpable, nearly measurable dimensions at times.  Of course, Ian's personality has to have a good deal to do with it as well.  He's not really "of this world," so to speak, and I think people appreciate that in him.

So we left with stacks of drawing projects and his elaborate display about the life cycle of a caterpillar/butterfly, and his crafts box, and his report card - all kinds of little folders and "portfolios," and we stopped at the office on the way out to get the very most important item, the abandoned-but-not-for-long Pokemon video, and we headed home.  On the way in and out of the school, Ian stopped to admire - and chase - a chipmunk scampering through the evergreen bushes lining the school at the edge of the parking lot.

Soon after I got home, young Daniel was scheduled to get off the bus, so I waited for him in the driveway.  I took a camera, because for me, it's a very big deal that he completed Kindergarten - really the first ushering into real institutional life, this transition - and when the school bus came down the road, I was ready.  The bus stopped in its usual spot across our narrow little street, since it was heading in that other-facing direction - and I stood with the lens trailed on the spot where I expected him to emerge from the bus, almost as if I were some kind of obsessive parent.  But for some time - something approaching a minute - there was no sign of him, so I finally stopped adjusting the camera's focus and looked up into the bus itself to see what was going on.  What was actually going on, was that his sweet, freckly, red-headed (female) bus driver was giving him a big hug, saying goodbye, since he will be taking a new bus to a new school next year.  As he got off the bus, she said to me on the verge of tears- in fact, I think *with* some tears - something like "He's such a great little guy - I'm really going to miss him," and then she gave her trademark solid thumb-up, atop the great steering wheel, to indicate to the lad that it was safe to walk the twenty feet across our street, to the  shelter of our driveway.

A gigantic metallic thing - kind of like those "pikes" that they used to maintain at the turnpike to force you to pay your toll before you pass through - emerged - long, lightweight, yellow-and-chrome - not the slightest bit of an actual deterrent, but still institutionally important, somehow - and it extended, on a hinge, across the road alongside the bus to prevent all scofflaw motorists from passing during this solemn crossing.  Daniel stopped to humor me, grinning his standard all-teeth-and-then-some grin, and then came across the street and took me by the hand, to walk back to the house.

 The medical ordeal was over, and Daddy was still home for a short time, with the babysitter holding down the fort as I got ready to go to work.  Being as sentimental as I am, I appreciate that the hospital drill afforded me a bit of ritual time with the boys on their much awaited last day of school, even though I would never have hoped for the activities of the early morning.

But I'm grateful to have seen how loved both boys are, and to get a glimpse of them on their "own" turf...

(June 18, 2012)