Happy Birthday, Jonathan!

Jonathan was an obedient child even before he was born. I had undiagnosed borderline gestational diabetes, and I was really miserable. I was ready to be done.

All of my babies so far had been late, at least by a couple of days, and I didn't want this one to follow suit.  My LDS obstetrician was going to Salt Lake to attend general conference, so I didn't want the baby during the weekend that he was gone.  But he would be back on Monday, the single friend who was going to cover for us with the girls worked graveyard shift, but she had Mondays off.  I told my unborn child that he could be very helpful and come four days early on Monday, when Dr. Huish was back and Denise was most easily available.  So he did.  I went into labor about 8:30 p.m. Monday and delivered about 3:30 in the morning.  The tired daddy said, "Why do you always do this in the middle of the night?"  What popped out of my mouth in response was, "Because that's when I know where you are."  He weighed 10 pounds even, and was 20 1/2 inches long.  That means he was a pound and a half heavier than Emily and an inch and a half shorter--he was a chunk because of the untreated, unrecognized diabetes.  (This was the year before the glucola screening became standard at 6 months gestation, which would have caught it.  Did catch it with Carole.)  Denise was able to stay with the girls Monday night because she didn't work that night, and then while I was in the hospital she would get them after school until Hubby got home, make dinner and eat it with them, go home and take care of whatever she needed to take care of,  go to work, get off in the morning and sleep until school was out.  Their father was able to get them to school before he went to work.  It was perfect.  Jonathan was very cooperative.

Grandpa Stoddard made his first ever visit to give Jonathan a name and a blessing December 1.  This was feasible because Fast Sunday, the first Sunday of the month, was the last day of Thanksgiving weekend.  He owned an independent drugstore, and he closed for Thanksgiving and hit the road the next day instead of reopening for the rest of the weekend. ( He only made one other trip here before he died when Jonathan was twelve; we had been in Tacoma for twenty years.)

Emily, Grandpa, Christina, Roseanne

At Disneyland, meeting Pooh--almost 3

He was the kid who would roll around and sing to himself until he went to sleep for his nap, and then he would sleep for at least an hour, often two.  He responded to boundaries and correction.  If you said to his three-year-old self, "stay there" at an open doorway, he would stand and watch until you came back in.  (His brother?  Phhtt! he would dash out that door in an instant, as soon as your hands were full and you couldn't grab him.)  Jonathan did not repeat an action which had been rebuked--he would figure out some other thing to try, maybe several, but he would not defy the particulars once they had been made clear.

He was an early entry student for kindergarten.  Lots of people said that was a bad idea for a boy, but he was ready.  It didn't happen just for asking:  we had to go through a lot of hoops for a very careful evaluation.  Then his first grade teacher, at the end of the year, suggested that he should skip a grade.  I had to remind her that he was already the youngest kid she had in the class.  I think it helped that his temperament is steady and patient, and he is tall, so he wasn't a whiny, droopy, little-looking kid.  In 2nd grade I asked the reading teacher if she could test him to see where he topped out--perfect scores only tell you that a student comprehends everything you've asked, it doesn't give a maximum functioning level.  (This is the premise for giving the SAT's to gifted 7th graders, you have to find something that exceeds their abilities.) She said that once she was done with all the intake work for all the classrooms, she would look at that.

So, in later October, she gave him a battery of tests for reading comprehension, vocabulary, etc.  There were four areas of evaluation.  Reading comprehension came in at "entering10th grade", and the others were higher.  He was eventually placed in the one day a week pullout program for enrichment, then the last two years of elementary school in a full time gifted program, which linked into middle school, and the International Baccalaureate diploma for high school. 

His comprehension of gospel principles has matched his academic excellence.  Jonathan served a Spanish- speaking mission in Arizona. (Six years of German did not get him sent to Germany.)  Now he is back in school  in Utah, after being out of school for a while. (He started out at the University of Pittsburgh before his mission.)  He is married to a wonderful woman, a convert, and getting a degree in Spanish.

Jonathan and Maeby, June 2012 (swiped from them)

Happy, happy birthday, Jonathan. I had a glimpse of you long before you were born.  You are a blessing in our lives, and you were the tangible reminder of promises the Lord had made, an assurance that I could touch and hold, of hopes that did come to pass.  You know what those are. We love you.