Twenty-eight years ago I was expecting my third child, the due date being near the 4th of July.  It was near the end of the school year and Doug was having his drum major tryouts at the high school so I was helping the kids with conducting patterns and getting their routines ready.  I was sitting on a band chair with my feet up when they began.  Contractions.  I was thinking Braxton Hicks and so I continued working with the kids during the contractions, not letting on that anything is happening.

I wish I could remember all the details exactly, but I do remember going to the hospital and they gave me something to slow the contractions and I was to stay in bed.  Unfortunately that didn’t work, so it was back to the hospital where they tried to give me something a bit stronger.  After a while, it seemed this baby was in a hurry to get out and because the hospital I was planning to have the baby didn’t have a NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) I was sent by ambulance across the river into Cincinnati.  I remember it was night and it was surreal watching the lights from the highway out the back window of the ambulance.  We arrived at the next hospital where again, they tried to keep this child where he was for a while.

Unfortunately I had issues with the medication and it was increasing my heart rate and breathing, so the doctor, whom I had never met before, told me they were going to go ahead and take the baby because they were concerned about me.  This was the second preemie baby for me, so I at least had a clue as to what to expect.  Except this time, Doug could be in the room with me during the C-section.  This caused more concern for me than the birth because, well, poor Doug has an aversion to blood and surgeries which caused me to check on him more during the C-section than worry about what was going on.  And before you knew it, Jacob Tyler Bush was born.

He was stubborn from the moment he was born.  He knew when the nurses were coming and would fight them as much as a preemie could.  Although he was smaller than my second baby, he stayed in the hospital for a shorter time because I think he was just that ornery.  For the next twenty eight years, this child, now a man, has fought hard to do things his way, whether it seemed to make sense to anyone else or not.  I’m pretty sure the term “hangry” was invented for him because when he became hungry he was almost uncontrollable.  It took us a while to figure that one out.  He was very particular how things should be, and he would try to get you on technicalities all the time.  If I didn’t give a direction just a certain way or if it inferred rather than be specific, he would find a loophole and argue that “that’s not what you said”.  He certainly prepared me for teaching certain children, let me tell you.

But before you think this child was always angry, he did have a soft side, mostly for his older brother.  David was the introvert where Tyler was the extreme opposite and so many times I would see the younger brother encouraging the older brother.  To this day, he can get his older brother to do things his dad and I can’t and are the best of friends.

By the time he graduated from high school, we had figured out that we weren’t going to be able to make him do anything he didn’t want to do.  Now there was a girl.  She had gotten a full ride to a school in another state and he wanted to go.  So, going against everything my mom instincts told me, we moved him to another state.  For the next year he worked two jobs, hung out at the university with his girlfriend and paid for his dirty little apartment.  After that year he decided to go to school – his way of course and worked his way through to a college degree.  By the way, he married the girl who saw so much potential in him and I will be forever grateful.

This is the young man whose birthday we celebrated today, in his new home with his beautiful wife and son.  Still doing things his way of course, but we’ve all learned that this is who he is and it obviously works for him.  So happy twenty-eighth birthday my son.  We love you.