Caleb was my 5th pregnancy and he’s my oldest child. I had had his stillborn brother just the year before. Caleb’s heart stopped 8 minutes before he was born. The Dr. that delivered him said she tried and tried to resuscitate him for several more minutes without success and turned to the clock to pronounce time of death. As she did so, she had to look back at me and said to herself. “I can’t let her bury another baby”. She tried to revive him one more time and he began to scream bloody murder. 
Later she told me “Don’t worry Mrs. Lassiter, that baby is too mean to die.”
I became a mother on Mother’s Day after so many heartbreaks. I was over the moon!
I don’t know about the mean thing, but he is determined. He’s been that way since birth, to the good and sometimes to the bad.
Caleb is intensely loyal. Brave beyond reason. Very VERY protective of all his little sisters, and I’m still over the moon that he’s mine. 
He’s also the king of dead pan. That’s nearly gotten him smacked up side the head a few times. lol What can I say? I’m a bit slow on the uptake.
Caleb was the reason I started my quest in homeschooling. The school system was convinced Caleb was ADHD. I was sure that he was not, that they were just trying to cram and round peg into a round hole. Caleb was simply so bored to death, he’d be a pest.
Dr Peyton once told me “If you had the money to put him in a Montessori school he would blow their minds. In the public system they are going to try and quench his spirit.”
By first grade I was being “encouraged” to look into medication. Not bloody well likely. By fourth grade they had worn me down enough that I agreed to testing. The “experts” watched him play for about 20 minutes and declared he needed Ritalin.
So… I end up agreeing on the condition that it would never be administered at school, only at home before school.
Two days into this “wonder drug” Caleb is literally climbing the walls. Said he felt like there were bugs under his skin. I didn’t give it to him ever again.
At the next progress meeting (about 6 weeks later), the very first thing I heard was out of his teacher’s mouth. She said, “Mrs. Lassiter, I’m so glad you finally agreed to medication, there’s a world of difference.” Wrong words lady. I turned to her and said “Guess what B@#%$, he’s not on any drugs and hasn’t been since the second day after they were prescribed. So it’’s my contention that the only thing that has changed is YOUR attitude towards my child.”
Talk about a short meeting. Papers were shuffled and a few things mumbled about, but that meeting had come to an abrupt halt. I then let my ex bil and his wife take Caleb for the remainder of that school year. They lived in a better district and I wanted to see how things went at that school. They never once brought up drugging him, but still thought he needed LD services. ??????? No, he didn’t. He did in kindergarten, but not after that. He had some Eye hand co-ordination issues they believed due to him being long without oxygen at birth. I believe they wanted to keep Caleb labeled in some way because it brought more fed money into the district, plain and simple. They were seeing what they wanted to see, mostly dollar signs.
That was the final insult. I told them that I was removing Caleb and he would be homeschooled. The teacher blurted out, “She can’t do that can she?” Yes, the principal acknowledged, she can.
I decided if I was pulling one out, I was pulling them all out. So I went to the girls school and announced they would not be returning to school the next year.
Here I was a single mom of five and had just pulled four kids out of school. I was nervous, but had been feeling I was disobeying the Lord on the issue for years. It was time I took the leap of faith. Thirteen years later, my only regret is I didn’t act sooner. I put Caleb through hell just because I was being a chicken. Afraid to buck the system. Afraid to butt heads with my heavily teacher laden family.
If I had listened and obeyed right off the bat, Caleb would have undoubtedly had a much better childhood and better opinion of himself. He’s just now starting to see he is a smart young man. He’s taking some computer courses and scoring the highest in the class. Straight A student. He seemed so surprised. I wasn’t. I was a little sad it took this long to repair that damage. Boy am I happy it is repaired though!
