She had a semi-gibberish, perhaps satanic, incantation written up on the board."Abra Kadabra Ala kazaam, hocus pocus, vinny vinny veechy POOF!" The entire room of parents and kids had to recite the incantation, kids had to be sitting in their seats and quiet(a feat hard to accomplish on the last day of school with ice cream in the back) and Mrs. Sells had to wave her magic wand. She would wave the wand and poof, a second grader would emerge off the stool.

I guess it wasn't satanic because the kids didn't sprout horns or attitude suddenly -- they all smiled. You could tell they felt different and that Mrs. Sells' magic had worked.

I was just trying not to weep in the back of the room and totally embarrass my little boy. How did my beautiful big brown-eyed baby grow up into this wiry spindly funny kid? When did it happen so fast? How did he become such a math whiz? Why don't size 6 pants fit him any more? As I watched his sister sleeping through all the clapping and cheering, I remembered how frightened I felt about some of the first few weeks of his life.

The hospital gave him a bottle; he got confused about nipples and stopped latching on. He lost a LOT of weight, so much so that I had to go to the hospital emergency room on the weekend to get him weighed to make sure he was gaining. I gave up nursing at this point, resorting to pumping what tiny bit of milk I had and mixing it in with the formula. I was desperate that he would live. And I had so much trouble getting help with nursing.

The visiting nurse I had didn't know squat about nursing, and told me I should give up on it and use formula. My mother didn't know about nursing because she grew up in the time when you were supposed to give your kid formula because the world of science so wanted to believe they could do better than breast milk. I felt like I was left swinging in the wind.

After three weeks, when Russell got stabilized, I went back to the lactation consultant and figured out how to get him back on the breast. The rest of the time, I nursed and used formula. I think I had one week where it was pure breast because I didn't have to work. I was so proud of myself and felt so cool because I was doing this wonderful thing for my son.

And then we struggled through ear infection after ear infection. He didn't sleep through the night until he was 2. And the ear infections didn't stop until he was 4 and after he'd had two tube surgeries and an adenoidectomy. He started speech therapy when he was 3. It was obvious at that point that he was behind and he was so frustrated because no one but Mom understood him and she didn't understand him often. He was diagnosed with a severe speech disability and was put into special education pre-school. I fought with insurance companies on his behalf.

And the whole time, I had this horrible job I hated where I got no support for what I was going through. I was a working single mother of a sick child who needed me and needed the insurance that my job had and it sucked. I had this darling bright little boy who was suffering and for whom nothing seemed to be enough either to me or to anyone else.

And now, he's a second grader with a semi-toothless smile. He's still hard to understand sometimes, but he's so smart. He had a beautiful report card. And I mean BEAUTIFUL. Not a bad mark on it. His teacher said what a delight he is and how funny he is.

And he's not my baby any more.

The wedding pictures are finally here. I haven't put captions on them yet. Suffice it to say...It's Mike, Russell, me and one of my oldest and dearest friends, Robin. Canon Marcia would be the person officiating.

And the one of Mike towards the bottom? That softened look on his face is because he's just caught sight of me as I come into the chapel.