Wonder In The Journey

This week has been a rough one.

It started out with a leaking g-tube. Then a weekly weigh in resulting in yet another loss.

When you are four years old and weigh only 23.5 pounds, each and every ounce counts. Losing .5 in a week has a way of making your parents worried out of their gourds a wee bit nervous.

Upon calling the surgeon and giving our report, we are then instructed to make the hour commute to his office. Now. To check out that g-tube.

The appointment with the surgeon turns into more hour long drives plus an upper GI series. And you still have no idea why that g-tube was leaking.

Yup. Was.

Cause somewhere between your sanity and one of those hour trips to the hospital the g-tube quit leaking, but another issue became worse. Much worse.

Did I mention that it has been a stressful week?

I've sat down many times to write this homeschooling journey post of mine and Parker's. Each time I've had to quit. Because there hasn't been much schooling going on at our house.

And it has caused me to re-think for the bajillionth time whether or not I am cut out to home school Parker.

A whole week and no structured lessons. And I call myself a teacher?

So, tonight as I forced myself to sit in front of a blank computer screen and come up with an idea or two, I found myself looking back over the week.

And I remembered.

*The books that Parker and I read while traveling up and back from all those trips to the hospital.

* The poems and fingerplays we engaged in.

*The stops at our favorite aquariums found all over our children's hospital. At each stop Parker signed fish and I counted and pointed out their colors.

*The simple shape puzzles that Parker spent hours putting together this week while I held him in my lap.

*Teaching Parker how to sign 'nurse' and 'doctor'.

Because having Parker look at me and sign MONSTER! each time a doctor walks into the room is getting embarrassing.

And then I remembered why we decided to home school Parker in the first place. A medically fragile kid who lives life with a trach, g-tube , and ostomy bag, (not to mention the surgeries in his immediate future,) isn't one that you can educate in the usual way.

Especially since his life isn't exactly the same kind of usual as his peers, special needs or typical.

With Parker you've got to fit the teaching in when and where you can.

Squeezing out every ounce of wonder from each opportunity that comes our way.

Which, for a three year old, is kinda the format learning should follow anyway.

Don't you think?