Simple Existence

I can’t believe that our baby is 10 years old today.  Time goes so fast.  The other night he really wanted to learn how to mow the lawn.  Deb helped him with the front yard and together, they did a great job.  He was so proud.

We tricked him with his birthday present.   Over the last couple of months, he has done a few things that made us nervous about getting him a new guitar.  I don’t want to digress here, but basically he needed to show us that he could take care of his things.  He kept asking when he might be able to get a guitar, and I kept tell him when he is about 13.  Yesterday, he reminded us of how good he has been doing at taking care of things.  We said how proud we were, and that it was too bad that we had already bought his present.  Maybe next year.

Oh, was he surprised this morning

Tonight we are having dinner with my side of the family, as today is my mom’s birthday as well.  Tomorrow, we are going have a party for our family of friends and Deb’s side of the family, and Saturday we are leaving for a week in New Mexico.   When we get back, he will celebrate his birthday with his birth grandma and aunt.  I love birthdays in our house.  We tend to drag them out over several days, sometimes weeks.

Sweet Boy came home from school the other day sobbing his eyes out.  He was terribly sad because he was going to miss his friends for the summer.  Luckily he got a few of their numbers. 

This touches my heart more than I can even express.   For me to say where he is today, compared to where he was when I adopted him, I would have to write a book.  I often say he is just a normal 10 year old boy, but the truth is that he still has a lot of healing to do, and his wounds make it very difficult for him a times.  As hard as he is sometimes, and I mean hard, he is complete joy to have around.   This is the best school year we have ever had.  A summary of his elementary experience is this:

Kindergarten – Missed 3/4 of it.  Got uprooted from his abusive home and came to live with me.  Put him in a private summer program, but wasn’t really intended to be educational.  Socially, he was a complete mess.  

1st grade – completely unprepared.  Couldn’t really hold him back because as far as he was behind academically, he was street wise beyond his years.  They almost didn’t let him get past first grade.  Barely made it.  No real friends.

2nd grade – socially a complete mess.  Curious, hyper, very behind in reading.  Wonderful teacher, but more mother than teacher.  He consumed her attention.  I had to fight really hard to keep him from being put in ’special’ classes.   No real friends.  Teacher couldn’t believe how mature he was in relationship with adults, but completely at a loss with kids.

3rd grade – Excellent teacher with really good boundaries.  Finally catching up.  Still, no friends.  Low self esteem.   

This year – Amazing.  New school.  Amazing teacher.  Really, they put on an opera, and he did a powerpoint for his book report.  Also, he went to Youth City after school, which I attribute to most of his social growth.   For the first time ever, he started to remember his classmates names, could tell me things about them, and all the kids would say good bye to him when I would pick him up.   So, for him to make friends this year, is a really big deal. 

Also, for the first time ever, Sweet Boy was given an award at school.  It was for his outstanding attendance and his not being tardy even once.  He only missed two days for being sick.   He was so proud that he could barely stand it when he got home.  We are so, so proud of him.  We are good parents, and have provided a safe and loving place for him to grow and heal, but he has done most of the work.