Chance Hedger arrives!

It only took a couple of hours, and one passed out papa in the O.R., but Chance Curtis Hedger has officially joined our happy family. He was born at 9:11 a.m. Central, weighed 8 lbs, 1 oz., measured 20 inches long and has strawberry blonde hair -- which goes great with his Spartan green MSU hat.

Here are some pics from here at the hospital. I tried getting these up on Facebook, but alas it wouldn't let me post them. The O.R. nurses were kind enough to take a few shots of him in the O.R. for me, and didn't take any shots of me, laid out on the floor after the big passing out incident. Also, you will notice that it is rare to catch my son with his eyes open. He likes to sleep I think. He gets it from both of us.

Lisa is doing well in her recovery. Much more relaxed process than with Liz, but this one also wasn't an emergency C. Happy birthday, son. You're zero and counting, buddy.

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.

Kindergarten here we come

It is truly hard to believe that Liz will be starting Kindergarten on Aug. 19. The last weeks have remained crazy as we've tried to hurry and prepare the house for Baby Chance's arrival and prepare Liz for school.

She had registration last week and Brian took her and it went as well as can be expected with him describing it as a nightmare panic-inducing trip. As I said, it went as well as can be expected.

On Friday, we met with her principal and did the "walk-through" to discuss what types of adaptations we'd need for the school. This actually did go quite well. I know Liz is the first Little Person student to attend the elementary. So, I was worried about how they'd react, but the principal even had considered some issues I hadn't - such as a stool by the chalk board if the teacher has students write on the chalk board.

I'd gone to the LPA website beforehand and saw a check-list of accommodation issues and modified that list and gave it to the principal. I also wrote a one-page letter to the teacher which he said he'd pass around to all of her teachers (music, PE, etc..). And, finally I gave them a one-page fact-sheet that I'd modified from several achondroplasia fact sheets you can find on the web.

May seem like a lot of paperwork, but it's only 3 pages and I tried to make it very easy to read and focused on simple concepts.

Everything in the class can be accommodated quite easily with step stools. For now, she's fine letting her feet dangle from the chair, but I think that will likely change. When it does, we'll just get a stool for her feed. She can actually even reach a few of the drinking fountains in the hallway, which is great too!

Our only two issues are the cafeteria and the bus. The kids slide their trays along this long counter in the cafeteria to get food and it's way too high for Liz to reach. If we had a stool, it would have to be about 6-feet-long to reach the entire length of the cafeteria counter, plus very wide so that she could walk across it. So, for now we'll have someone in the cafeteria help her. I'd prefer her to be independent but for now, I think this will work.

Now, the bus is another issue too. I'm concerned about the HUGE first step on the bus. We're still debating and might walk her to school because it's only a few blocks. However, she does want to take the bus so I'd like to figure out a plan so she can take the bus. Brian or I can help her on the bus from our home, but then someone would need to help her off when she gets to school and help her on again at the end of the school day.

Liz is very excited about starting Kindergarten and our school did something new this year which was a HUGE help for incoming Kindergartners. They held a weekly summer program for 2 1/2 hours and split the children by age. So, Liz got to meet lots of other students as well as the teachers. She spent time in the school and got a great feel for the school. She's also quite comfortable with the school and by the second week, the principal knew her name.

The principal is very jovial and approachable to the students -giving them high-fives and joking with them a lot. He was also very candid in saying that we might have to make adjustments throughout the year and we agreed saying that could likely occur too.

Ideally, Baby Chance will wait until Aug. 24 so I can be there for Liz's first day of Kindergarten or if he decides to come early then we want it to be this week so I'll be back home for Kindergarten, but you just never know!

My doctor has essentially said that now since I'm 37 weeks pregnant, Baby can come any day. So, we'll see. As you can imagine, Liz is just so excited about being a big sister! I'm not sure what she's more excited about - Kindergarten or being a big sister - probably a close tie.

Summer of surgeries

It's been a terribly busy summer and that's mostly to blame for my non-existent posting. Brian had oral surgery with a painful extraction of wisdom teeth that were removed three weeks ago. The teeth were essentially sideways and he had pain so the teeth had to go. The procedure was more painful because of the difficult extraction.

On Wednesday, Liz had her tonsils removed, her adenoids shaved and another set of tubes put in her ears. We couldn't have her adenoids completely removed because she has a split uvula and there was potential for speech problems.

Her tonsils are huge and seem to be to blame for her destructive sleep apnea as well as the adenoids. We didn't expect to notice much improvement for a few weeks because of the post-surgical recovery time but surprisingly we have seen her snoring and breathing is already more quiet than before.

The recovery for tonsils has been much more challenging than it is for tubes. She felt horrible for a few days and even had some post-bleeding on Thursday but today felt much better for the first time. Some people tell me it only takes two days to recover from tonsils and others say two weeks. For her, it's probably somewhere in between. She's four days out now and seems much more like herself.

I loaded the freezer with Popsicles, ice cream, sundaes, sherbet and pop ups and she really hasn't eaten hardly any of the cold stuff. I'm not sure why, but she's favoring soft solid foods like cupcakes and soft pasta. It's surprising and a little annoying because now I'm eating all of the cold treats!

We decided not to take her to summer camp for two weeks, but I have a feeling she's really going to be bored by the second week at home, and we're staying away from swimming too for the time being.

I'll be the last person in our family to have surgery and that will be the c-section to deliver Baby Chance on Aug. 24 - five weeks away - unless he surprises us and come early. At this point, we decided on a c-section because of the complications with Liz and some other issues. I'd prefer a natural birth, but the doctor believes this would be better for the baby.

Liz will start Kindergarten on Aug. 19 (isn't that early) and we'll be around to help her with school and then the following Monday Chance should arrive.

She turned five on June 17 and we had a big birthday bash for her, and she's quite excited about starting Kindergarten plus being a big sister. Quite the big summer for her!

One of these days, I'll actually post her birthday pictures (hopefully before Baby Chance arrives).

Hey all,

After finding some new photos on rolls of film that we hadn't developed in literally ages, almost a decade in some instances, I took a trip down Memory Lane today while Lisa was at work and Liz was at summer pre-school camp.

Then, I started playing around with the Windows media function on my laptop to see what I could come up with. What became of it was a compilation of newer and older Liz photos that I set to one of my favorite artist's music.

I didn't even think about copyright stuff -- and I'm a writer! -- until Facebook took the video down because of "alleged copyright infringement."

So, after feeling like a moron, I decided to take this video down too -- at least until I hear back from the artist's people either granting me permission to use the song or telling me to buzz off and don't even think about it etc.

Sorry.

-- Bri

Preschool graduation

It's hard to believe but Liz had her preschool graduation on Friday night and will be starting Kindergarten this fall.

We've finally found the fire-wire, instrumental for downloading our own pictures. So, without further ado, here's some Liz pics from recent weeks. We'll end with a couple from the preschool graduation. It was dark in there and the video turned out much better but the few pics we got were cute.

Here are some pictures from our camera of the carnival at University of Chicago in Mid May. Here's Liz with her aunt Helen and Cousin Stephen. Helen and Liz are showing off their orange wrist-bands, which allow them to go on one of the inflatables.



Here's another great shot of Liz's face painted with that adorable butterfly. I love that photo.



Brian and Liz enjoy a train ride at the carnival at University of Chicago.



A great picture of Liz and Brian at the carnival.



Liz wears her new Princess helmet and knee pads with her traditional tricycle for her Trike-A-thon a week ago. The proceeds went to St. Jude's Children's Hospital.



Daddy adjusts the Princess helmet to ensure it meets proper Trike-A-Thon regulations.



Now, she's trying on the brand new Princess bike at the trike-a-thon and taking it out for a spin.



Liz, our budding photographer took this photo of me. At the time I was 5 1/2 months pregnant.



Earlier this month, Brian and Liz practice softball and T-ball in the backyard.



She's practicing her batter's stance and looking at Daddy to see if she's got it right.



For Mother's Day we went to Goshen and spent some time with my family. Here's a shot of the ladies.



Liz and that smile.



Here's Liz and her preschool buddies, the Koalas. These pictures were dark but even though it may look like she's taking a pick here, I believe she was following the motions of the song. They performed a poem and sang several songs.



Here's our preschool graduate afterward quite proud. She then proceeded to munch on cookies and punch from cups that said, "09 grad."

Fabulous Carnival - except for the Bird Man

The weekend before Memorial Day, my in-laws were in town and we spent all day Saturday and Sunday at University of Chicago - which was quite a blast. My nephew Stephen goes there and on that Saturday they had a carnival with free burgers, ice cream and all sorts of carnival food including fried Twinkies and cotton candy. They also had inflatable rides.

Liz had a blast and got her face painted, went on several rides, including an adorable train. It all went perfectly until University Of Chicago's mascot, The Phoenix, started strutting his stuff. Now, Liz understands it's a man in a costume, but that didn't matter. She was terrified, and I mean terrified into hysterical tears every time the Bird Man was near.

At one point my nephew Daniel was posing with the Phoenix showing off his tattoos (see below) and Liz was still terrified of the Bird Man crying and running away from him. Keep in mind she's seen her cousin Daniel in his military combat attire and didn't flinch. But this is a strange man in a strange outfit and it's all quite different. Let's just say if she saw Bird Man 50 feet out, she began crying.

As we were resting taking a well-needed break from all of the food we'd ingested in such a short period, I, the pregnant lady, decided to venture out for some more food - because there's really no such thing as eating too much food at a carnival. I left the group to wonder around, and I saw the Bird Man and heading right toward Liz.

I had to make an immediate choice. Do I just walk by him and hope that he doesn't head straight for Liz - causing her to crumble in tears - or do I dare try to communicate with a mascot whose code of ethics does not allow him to speak aloud.

That's right - I suddenly found myself speaking with a large human in a bird costume - who seemed to want to help but could do nothing but use his arms pointing the same way the person directing traffic points his arms to the left and right and by the end you're so confused you have no idea which way to go.

Finally, he kept pointing toward Liz and I kept shaking my head, saying NO NO - don't go in that direction. And, suddenly, I felt like the traffic guy pointing my arms high above my head trying to show him where he should go. In just a few minutes of this very-odd communication, Liz eventually saw me talking to the bird man and certainly became quite concerned. Fortunately, I did somehow quite clumsily manage to direct Bird Man into another direction.

I still don't understand why the "no speaking" is so important to mascots but Brian maintains that Bird Man is forbidden by all Mascot rules to speak to me and he couldn't make an exception - even if it meant saving a little girl from more trauma. By the end, she was probably traumatized just seeing her mommy so near the scary Bird Man.

Here are some pictures - courtesy of my sister-in-law Helen since we've still got some technical difficulties here. But you should be able to make out a pretty nice baby bump!

Here's a great one of Liz with her face painted. She really wanted the butterfly but the line at face-painting was probably about an hour-long. It didn't look that long with only about 7 people in front of us but with only 2 painters and some of the creations taking 15 minutes, the time ads up. I decided to wonder around while she waited with Brian and I found a face-painter with NO line. So, we dashed over there, and they did a most excellent job on the butterfly.



Here's Liz and I stuffing our faces - me more than her!



No, Liz wasn't swimming at the carnival. She was in swim classes at our local Y and here's a cute picture my sister-in-law got of her.



Here's a picture of Brian, my brother-in-law Curt, Liz and myself.



Here's the infamous Bird Man with my nephew Daniel. While this picture was being taken, Liz was sobbing hysterically running away from the Bird Man.

Caution: Dad on a Mission

Below is one of the columns Brian just wrote on his new blog, postcards from the Hedge. He actually took a difficult situation for us and wrote a pretty hysterical column about it.

Once you get past the bleeps and rants about the quality of products made overseas, you'll find an incredibly heart-warming story of a dad who will go to any lengths for his daughter.




First, I'd like to apologize to the Chinese. Sort of.


In the midst of feverishly scrambling to assemble a small, pink princess bicycle in the parking lot of my daughter's pre-school recently, I might have said a few things about the Chinese that weren't exactly complimentary.


It didn't help that the tool kit I bought with the bike didn't include clamps, which would have come in handy considering the (bleeping) Chinese just had to use bolts that weren't made with any human measurement scale.

Once I figured out that the Chinese (bleepers) who assembled this pink piece of (bleep) designed the pedal bolts to tighten opposite of the "righty tighty" method, everything was fine.

That's when I realized that I may have slightly over-reacted, despite losing skin off my fingers hopelessly attempting to tighten those (bleeping) bolts with my bare freaking hands.

Thanks a lot, China!

Maybe next time I should just scrape off a few lead-based paint chips and eat them until the lead drives me stone cold crazy!

But I digress. Also, I should probably explain how I got to the point where I was frantically monkeying with a child's bike in a parking lot.

You see, Friday was "Trike-A-Thon" day at Liz's pre-school. She had been looking forward to it all week. The premise was to teach the kids about bike safety while also raising money for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital.

Liz was supposed to get people to pledge a certain amount of money per lap that she completed on her tri-cycle at the school's playground course. Fair enough. Her pledge-givers (we, her family) decided to pledge a set amount, and all was good until we got to school.

Liz and I walked in together. She carried the shiny, new "Dora The Explorer" helmet and knee pads that she and my wife, Lisa, had picked up the night before. Liz was so proud. One of her classmates even commented about how "cool" her new helmet was.

And then, after my pre-requisite hug goodbye, it was off to place her tri-cycle out where her class' bikes were to be stored until 11 a.m. – the time when her class, the "Koalas," hit the open road for the exciting, thrilling "Trike-A-Thon."

It was approximately 9:45 when I got to the "Koalas" trikes, which turned out to be actual bikes, complete with training wheels and horns and pom-pon stuff sticking out of the handles.

Liz's "bike" was an actual trike, like the kind two and three-year olds use.

It was approximately 9:46 when my heart broke.

At that point, Liz had the only tri-cycle in her class. She has a form of dwarfism, and her tiny legs could barely reach the pedals of her tri-cycle until last summer, when she turned 4. She stands about 35 inches tall, which pales in comparison to her friends.

We'd never thought of getting her an actual bike, even a really small one that she might be able to handle with training wheels. So, we let her use that trike and never thought twice.

Not until Friday, that is. The thought of Liz getting out there with the other kids, and noticing that she had the only "little kid's" bike just about ripped me apart. I called Lisa. We cried.

I said, "There is a practical way to handle this and an impractical way to handle this."

The practical solution was to hope for the best and see about getting her a bike later. The impractical way was for me to rush over to Meijer's and get her a bike, then assemble it – all before that 11 a.m. deadline.

Well, if you've read this far, you know which one I picked. Soon I was on my way to the store, tailgating an old lady who I swear hit her brakes about 315 times in one three-block stretch of downtown Crown Point.

Immediately I thought about the recent U.S. News & World Report study showing where the nation's worst drivers are. They ranked Indiana in the 20s among states, but they missed this lady – who easily could have ranked 10th all by herself.

It was almost 10 a.m. when I got to the store and started looking at bikes. All of the pre-assembled jobs were too huge for Liz, even the smallest ones. Dejected, I started to leave before noticing even smaller bikes in boxes.

On the boxes were notices stating three words that have made many dads cry and pee their pants upon reading them: "Some assembly required."

Those dads weren't the son of Lee Hedger, though, who was widely known around our part of Brighton, Mich., as the real life "Mr. Goodwrench."

In a flash, I did the math in my head. It was at least 15 minutes back to the pre-school parking lot, which would give me roughly 25 minutes to assemble that (bleeper) and roll it out to Lizzy and the Koalas (which Dave Barry would think is an excellent name for a rock band).

"If I'm going to do this, I need tools!" I thought, rushing off to the tool aisle.

There, I grabbed a gray box that touted its 144 piece tool set. Would you believe that none of those pieces included pliers?

Also, they must have been Norwegian tools, because not one of those 144 pieces ended up fitting correctly on any of the (bleeping) Chinese hardware that came with the bike. Of course, I didn't find that out until I'd thrown the focker into the trunk of my car and sped off toward the school.

Wouldn't you know it? More fogies puttering along at 20 mph or less! Damn! It was pushing 80 degrees outside. Inside my air-conditioned Sebring, I started to sweat.

"You people are going to break my little girl's heart," I muttered. "Oh, but at least you know where the brake pedal is. This has to be what it's like to live in Florida."

Somehow, I pulled into the lot around 10:25 (I really shaved some time off after tailgating an elderly couple so bad they pulled over to let me pass. Sorry, little girls take precedence people).

Before you could say "communism" I had that pink metallic Chinese handiwork out of the box and nearly slapped together. Front tire? On. Seat? On and secured. Handle bars? On, tightened and straight. Pom-pon thingys? Jammed into the handles.

All was ready to go except for that blasted left pedal, which I was fighting with when my wife pulled up shortly before 11.

"If I had a (bleeping) hammer, I'd just hammer this (bleeper) in there and be done with it," I snorted. "(Bleeping) Chinese. Everything's made in China … and it's made like crap!"

"Do you want me to go see if they have a hammer or something?" Lisa said.

"Yes. Yes. That would be good. A hammer," I gasped. "See if they have a hammer. I'll pound on it until it fits! Oh, and see about some pliers!"

She and our unborn son, Chance, headed off on their mission and returned with the hammer -- which I then began to use frantically, as if our very lives depended on me getting that pedal in there. It didn't work.

"Son of a (bleep)!" I snapped. "It's not working! Piece of (bleep)! This is all the Chinese's fault, you know. This is their way of sticking it to us … by making (bleepy) pieces of (bleep) like this pink (bleeper) right here. (Bleep) you, China."

In my head, I thought about last summer's Olympics in Beijing, China. I thought about all the high-tech laser wizardy, graceful movements and other glam from the opening and closing ceremonies.

"They can do all of that crap," I thought, "but they can't make a bolt fit into a hole for (bleep)!"

I squeezed my fat little fingers around the bolt and turned -- to no avail.

"If only this stupid tool set had come with pliers," I muttered.

"Oh, do you want me to go ask them if they have some pliers?" Lisa said.

"Didn't I say to ask them for some pliers before?" I snapped, clearly on the verge of defeat by the Chinese. "Yes, go see if they have some pliers or something for this (bleeping) Chinese (bleeper)."

And then, something magical happened. Just as Lisa returned with the pliers, I turned the bolt the opposite way. It went into place with ease. I could sense those Chinese bike makers shaking their heads and laughing at me, somewhat vindicated.

I didn't care.

The pedal crisis solved, I wheeled the bike over to the race course proudly. Liz was happily pedaling her trike around the track with a huge smile on her face, looking about as cute as anything I've ever seen – a little blur of helmet and knee pads. As it turned out, other Koalas kids had trikes, too.

I didn't care. I was a man who had conquered an impossible mission, and backward Chinese engineering, to save the day. I wanted badly to stick out my chest, grunt and scratch myself -- but refrained.

Liz pedaled closer to where I'd parked her new bike, and I told her it was hers.

"That's MY bike, Dad?" she said. "Really, Dad? It's all mine?"

"Yeah, baby … it's all yours."

Thanks, China.