Where Has The Time Gone?...

So today is May 26th, 2011.  In one month less a day our beautiful baby boy will be 3 years old!  Where has the time gone?

He was only 8 days old when he officially came into our lives and 13 days old when he came home forever from the hospital.  Those are 5 days of my life I will never forget.  (Although I do have them fully documented in a diary I'm keeping.)

So in these past 3 years our sons have grown and changed so much.  Our eldest was only 4 years old not quite 5 and very, very excited to meet his new baby brother!  Our baby was only a newborn and going through withdrawals (mildly at first, then horribly) within 6 months of his homecoming.  He was quite premature so it took a while for the true withdrawals to set in.  When they did, boy oh boy, our family all felt it.  The compassion that surfaced in our eldest was unbelievable.  Prior to that we hadn't seen too much, but knowing his brother was in pain that no one could help, drove him around the bend.  There wasn't anything he wouldn't do for that baby!  I thought I loved my eldest as much as I possibly could until that first true bout of withdrawals!  Boy was I wrong!

So baby grew and developed better than anyone dared hope for a newborn born with the addictions he had, and big brother grew and developed in ways no one could have predicted.

My eldest is my pride and joy.  He is the polar opposite of his little brother.  S. is serious and sober.  At 7 and half years old he's finally developing a sense of humour.  He is extremely literal.  He is old.  Everyone who meets him says they've never met such an old soul.  He is 7 and half years old with the attitude of a 17 year old!  Now I know every parent says that but it's true.  Meet my son and you'll look at me and say, "Wow you weren't kidding!"  Everyone does.

I'm homeschooling my eldest this year.  When we started grade 2 he was reading and comprehending at a grade 4 level.  He's now at a grade 9 level.  No, I'm not joking.  Occasionally I get asked what a word means and then he re-reads the sentence with the new definition of the specific word and I hear, " Oh OK, that makes sense now."  You know that show Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?  Well I'm not.  I thought I was, but I'm having issues with the Grade 2 work!  But we're getting there.

So, we're less than 3 weeks away from our term deadline and 2 weeks ago, I discovered an English book that we didn't realize was there.  It's a whole term of work we have to complete.  Which wouldn't have been so bad but I've been under the weather with a bit of a diabetic issue (which is completely resolved now) and we're working like mad-persons to get caught up!  And we will.  I'm so proud of my above average intelligence son!

Then we have the almost 3 year old.  Well I said my boys are polar opposites and they're even biological brothers.  S. is serious and sober, and G. was born laughing I swear!  There is very little that doesn't tickle his funny bone.  All this boy does is laugh.  Or try to make others laugh.  His speech is a little delayed, but everything else in his development is right on track or exceeding his age group.  All of his assessors have been amazed at the way he's developed being so premature.  Right from the get go we didn't have muscle tone issues, or failure to thrive issues or eating issues.  The doctor thought he had an eating issue but we explained about his big brother being a lazy eater (2 hours or more to eat a bit of yogurt) and they removed the feeding tube and let us take over.  We proved to them that we could get him to eat properly and they discharged him.

G. is a child that melts your heart the second he enters a room.  His eyes and his curls just get you.  Yes I know I'm biased as his Mum, but I swear I'm not exaggerating.  He has his issues too.  He has a temper.  His temper is worse than any ginger kid you'll ever meet.  When this child doesn't get his own way we get treated to a throw myself on the floor-kicking-and-screaming temper tantrum.  The only thing one can do is walk away and ignore it.  Stay out of the child's line of sight (but so that you can still see him for safety's sake) and give him NO attention.  Most children would stop within a few moments.  Not mine!  He can go on forever.  But eventually it stops and then he comes to find you and asks for cuddles.  It's OK to give it to him then.  He's forgotten why he was so upset!  But most of the time he's just a joy to be around.

Now that G. is almost 3, we're sitting here waiting for a call from our social worker to tell us we have new children coming.  We're praying we'll be able to adopt another sibling group.  Seeing how important it was/is for our eldest when he understood that G. was his biological brother, not just his adopted brother, showed us that we could give that same connection for another biological sibling group.  Then our family we built through adoption would have more than one connection for their lives.

So here I sit praying for that phone to ring.  Please Lord, we're ready....