Excitement

Talk about excitement.

Last week, Liz had her first day of Kindergarten and tomorrow we welcome the newest member of the Hedger family.

My c-section is schedule for early Monday and we hope to get pictures out sometime on Monday of Chance Curtis Hedger. He seems to be doing quite well and we're eager to meet him.

We've been lucky to have a lot of friends pass on boys' baby clothes so we feel very fortunate!

Our other excitement of course was Liz starting Kindergarten. This, as every parent knows, is always harder for the parents! Liz has been great at school. We walked the first few days and then she took the bus on Friday.

I was a bit nervous about her taking the bus with the first step being so tall. The bus system didn't impress me early on because they weren't returning my calls and weren't being proactive in coming up with a safe plan. Luckily, her principal Mr. D. is a tremendous advocate and even called the day before school to ask about the bus system's plan. When I told him what they had created - which was essentially nothing - he said: "that's not acceptable" and we chose to walk the first few days.

It was good to walk her because then we got to go to the classroom. On Thursday, Mr. D., her teacher Mrs. M, and someone from the bus system had Liz get on the bus several times to see if she needed a stool or other assistance. Turns out she didn't even need a stool.

Friday she took the bus both ways and didn't have any problems at all.

The bus situation is kind of funny because neither Brian nor I were huge fans of the bus as children, but this was important to Liz. So, we wanted to make sure that Liz had the same opportunity to use the bus as all other kids. And, of course she was quite proud of it and excited to do it.

Mr. D. also bought the stools for her classroom. Getting stools can be trial and error and a few of them didn't work, but they've gotten additional ones that are much better. We feel quite lucky that this principal realizes that Liz needs to do the same things as all other students and is making the necessary changes to ensure that happens. Of course, I realize that the law requires that school systems accommodate for all children, but I also realize that not all school officials are as on the ball and as helpful as Mr. D.

Her teacher, Mrs. M is also great, and we've met her several times. She's also e-mailed us and that's been a huge help to stay in touch with Liz's Kindergarten activities.

Next time I post, we'll have lots of information about the newest Hedger.