Today I watched the signing ceremony with a great sense of relief.

[Skidmore]

I was holding my two-year-old grandson at the time. He has asthma and has been battling bronchitis for about a month now. I was holding him while he was having a breathing treatment with a nebulizer. He hates the mask and gets the squirmies when he needs to sit for too long, so grandma cuddled him and we settled in to watch the ceremony on television. When the President entered, the little fellow sat up straight and pointed to the teevee. "It's Mr. Obama! Look! It's Mr. Obama!" He clapped his little hands and laughed between the crouping cough and the wheezing, and repeated the President's name. He sat through the whole ceremony, clapping with the audience and laughing in delight. I know he did not understand what was going on. But this grandmother is relieved that this President has sought to fight a firmly entrenched system and make a meaningful crack in the door for so many to get through. Sometimes a crack is all you need. Room to pry the door fully open. This grandmother is relieved that this child will be cared for as he goes through life, as will his siblings who are also asthmatic. This grandmother is treasuring those moments when she and little boy with a sunny disposition could peer into this moment in history together.

[Dappleganger]

1. He sounds beautiful!

Three out of four of our kids grew up with ashtma, all from the time they were born (thanks to Mom, ugh). Have spent many a long night and day holding the fish mask up to their face trying to convince them to be still. It's not easy, but I have to think that it's just something Mom's do (daily care). Asthma meds have become SO expensive, and when you throw in regular bouts of bronchitis and worse, pneumonia...well, this is why we can't ever have car payments. Thankfully they're able to regulate their own meds more as they get older.

:hug:

[Berry Cool]

2. You're making me tear up for the second time today.

The first time was seeing how the little boy whose mother died for lack of insurance was standing right next to Obama's desk as he signed. Thinking about how this is a story he will tell his grandchildren, if he has any, until they get positively sick of hearing it.

"Oh jeez, is Grandpa telling the story again about how he watched the President sign the health-care bill?"

"Yeah...let's go play games."

And it's actually a beautiful thing that by that time, they will think his story is no big deal, or at least that their government being involved in health care is no big deal. And the fact that Grandpa was there at the signing of that bill will only be proof in their eyes of how old and decrepit he really is. Because they will never have known what it was like to have parents who worried about paying their medical bills. That will be an old scare story out of the past.

Someday, your grandson will understand the full import of what he watched today, and when he does, and hears you tell him how excited he was even before he understood it all, he'll say "I was a pretty smart kid even then, wasn't I, Grandma? I knew what that bill would mean to me." And you'll laugh and say "Yes, you did."

[Cha]

3. I'm happy for you Skidmore!

How Sweet he knows President Obama when he sees him..you know that makes me smile.