December tenth doesn’t mean much to my enthusiastic 8 year old. He doesn’t get presents and it isn’t his birthday. To me however, this day never goes by without a moment to note its very special significance. Today will always be the day we brought our first born home from his 96 day stay at California Pacific Medical Center. It was a long sleepless night for all of us.

I was terrified. I had convinced myself that babies were best cared for under the twenty-four hour attention of highly trained medical professionals and, maybe he was better off there until he is was one year old. Something so natural as bringing your baby home from the hospital seemed inconceivable for me at that time. He seemed so safe in the hospital. Bringing him home felt equivalent to running a mountain ridge with scissors in your hand.

First Ride in the car. Destination? Home!

Of course it was time and ready or not he was coming home leaving behind the sanitized medical facility for the warm and nurturing environment of home where he has continued to thrive every since.

We will never know for sure why he was born at 26 weeks and 2 days gestation. Could have been my body with an attitude problem, an incompetent cervix and an over active uterus. It was most likely not one thing but rather, a variety of factors that we solved for during my second pregnancy.

Today Eric is a growing boy so enthusiastic to start each day that he sets his alarm clock in case his internal clock which, rises him with the sun, fails him. He begins his day immediately asking the questions on his mind and talking about the plan for the day. He winds down at bedtime, all tucked in his cozy upper bunk-bed, talking and squirming and processing the activities of the day to himself as he falls asleep, smiling most the while.

Loving his home

He is always moving and never content to sit still. He doesn’t have ADHD. In fact he pays close attention to what is going on around him picking up on conversations I would have rather he missed. This is just his temperament.   

Observing his temperament and comparing it much to my own has lead me to believe that our combined temperaments of being early risers, morning learners, and active people had something to do with why Eric was pushed out by my eager to contract uterus.

His introduction to our home and the world outside has been slow and steady, and eight years later his temperament has remained true. He is busy, active, and social despite his seemingly sheltered two years of “baby steps”.

I guess what leads me to write these words is the fact that I was told by many people who had not experienced what I had experienced that I was harming his social development by not doing things like taking him into crowded places like day cares, grocery stores, or shopping malls. To those people I say LOOK At US NOW! Oh how far we have come. His temperament and my own would never have allowed us to stay put long!