Boy Oh Boy

I excitedly posted this comment on Facebook yesterday:

This note came home from Matthew's preschool teacher today and made this mama's heart soar: "Matthew seemed very relaxed today and made lots of eye contact. He is growing leaps and bounds right before our eyes!"

Ninety-seven “likes” later (thank you dear friends and family for your unbridled enthusiasm for our boy), my heart is even more full than it was. It’s hard to explain how it feels to invest in a boy for months and months with what feels like such little returns, only to wake up one morning and see the tangible results of that investment.

So in case you were wondering, preschool is going SO WELL for Matthew. He loves his teachers and his classroom, he’s learning to play with other students, he’s signing like crazy, sitting in circle time, experimenting with eating new foods, and settling into the routine like it’s old hat.

I’m thrilled.

It’s a busy time at our house right now, as I’ve shared before, since Matthew is our little explorer and scientist, and we cannot take our eyes off him for a second. He’s climbing bookshelves, re-arranging furniture, drawing on upholstery, pushing every button he can find, and generally making whatever mischief he can possibly make.

But even though Aaron and I roll our eyes several times a day and sometimes audibly moan at our exhaustion, we’re also secretly thrilled at the ways Matthew is waking up to the world around him. It’s amazing to realize that he’s hearing words and sounds, that he’s soaking them in and processing them and coming to understand them.

I’ve had a shift in my heart these past weeks too. Learning to love a child who comes to you already formed and shaped is a strange thing, and in the midst of all the transition, there were honestly times when I had to work hard to feel attached to my boy. He was new and strange (as I’m sure we were also to him), and when he didn’t respond in ways that I expected him to, I felt distanced from him and frustrated too. It was hard to understand him (it still is sometimes, honestly). But the longer we’ve spent time together, the more we’ve come to know each other, and the more he awakens to the world and begins asserting himself as a social being, the more I am falling head-over-heels in love with this boy.

Yes, it’s his sweet face that I think is so beautiful. He’s such a handsome boy, with his deep brown eyes, his luscious lips, his perfect cheekbones. He’s really quite a gorgeous kiddo.

His body is also familiar and beautiful to me, and strong and able too. Despite his many social challenges, Matthew’s physical development has really completely caught up (which is a miracle in itself) and I’ve always given thanks for strong and capable body that carries my boy through his days.

But these days it’s more than just the graceful features of my boy that make this mama’s heart swell. For the first time I’m seeing pieces of Matthew’s personality emerge—his sense of humor, his persistence, his determination—and I’m falling in love with those things too. I remember telling Aaron, after we had been matched with Matthew but hadn’t yet brought him home, that I hoped our third child would be calm and mild-mannered.

What a funny laugh now that neither “calm” nor “mild-mannered” are words I’d use to describe our boy. But now I understand that his persistence and his largess of presence are so important to his ability to thrive in our family and our world. If he was meek and reluctant, hesitant or cautious, he wouldn’t be doing so well in his development, overcoming so many challenges. It’s exactly his STRONG personality that is helping him move through this season.

Today I had this funny thought: Although this journey is foggy and unclear at best right now, one day I’ll look back and see a clear trajectory of development for Matthew that I hope I will finally understand.

It’s always this way, I suppose. When you’re in the thick of things, it’s hard to see where you are going. But once you arrive somewhere, there’s the blessing of looking back and finally saying “oh yeah, NOW I get it.”

That moment will be grace upon grace for this mama’s heart.