The Commencement That Almost Wasn't

For the past year and a half, Chris has been taking online classes through Ottawa University in order to finish his bachelor's degree in Police Science. And tonight, he walks. :-)

It is really a very special thing that he gets to be a part of this commencement; his last classes don't even end for another month, and his degree doesn't actually confer until May somethingth. If it was up to the two of us, we wouldn't have bothered with the ceremony at all -- it's held in Phoenix, and with the driving, and the kids, and work and everything, we would be happy to just receive the degree in the mail and be done with it. But we knew that the fact that Chris is graduating means a LOT to his parents and, especially since his dad was diagnosed with colon cancer, we felt that it was important to try and make it happen. We were expecting commencements to happen in May/June and December, like they do for the state universities around here, but OU's commencements in April and September, and this year's September ceremony coincides very closely with the arrival of our new baby, so it was not a reasonable option. It really looked like commencement was going to be a no-go after all, but then Chris explained our dilemma to his advisor-type-person. This woman, someone that Chris has only ever communicated with via e-mails and phone calls, jumped in and got special permisson for him to walk this April. Very, very cool. *

So this afternoon, thanks to a person we've never met, Chris is going to get to walk across the stage in cap and gown, and make his parents' day (assuming they both show up... which is another blog post entirely).

Now the only problem is why, oh why, did I not realize that I was going to have to keep a toddler happy and busy during the ceremony and what, oh what am I going to bring along to keep him occupied?!?!?!

* The whole Ottawa University experience was really positive -- if you are in the market for an online university, I would definitely recommend looking at them!