There were three places I wanted to be on Saturday night: my sister-in-law's surprise fortieth birthday party in Wisconsin, our church's annual fundraiser to support outreach to the marginalized in St. Louis City, and an Eagle Scout ceremony for a young man Rich has encouraged for years.

Instead I spent Saturday evening standing outside a chicken coop with Nathaniel.

I write so much about Nathaniel's communication needs, that I have not put into writing the other areas of development that we are addressing in therapy. There are many. Nathaniel continues to have a global developmental delay and some significant sensory processing needs. He has consistently received Occupational Therapy and Physical Therapy in addition to his twice weekly Speech Therapy.  We had a long day of appointments at St. Louis Children's earlier this month and the collective decision was to start some new weekly therapy there to address some of the sensory needs. We go tomorrow for our first visit, which increases OT to twice a week now. We are putting PT on hold for a time to allow for the extra focus on OT.

Three weeks from today we'll take our fifth child to college for his freshman year. We've done this before; all summer I've falsely believed that fact would make this new transition easier. But as I shared coffee with my son this morning and started making the packing list, I felt the familial tug on my heart.  And an occasional lump in my throat. He's leaving. Very soon.