The new baby isn't the only miracle......

Well, it's been just a bit more than a month since I last posted anything here. That speaks of one very busy month.
I am a high energy woman, rarely bored, who has created a large extended family of my own, five children, and in October of this year I'll have four grandchildren, as my second daughter, Annie, will be giving birth to her second child. This will be our first experience in this generation with big brother adaptation, in that Caleb is Annie's oldest child. It will be both tentative and interesting to see this process evolve as one of his diagnosis' is adaptive disorder, he has difficulty with change, and doesn't adapt well when it occurs.
It takes him an inordinate amount of time to adjust to pretty much anything, including a change in bubble bath; and he eats only round (cut with the top of the peanut butter jar) pb&j sandwiches. Others can be triangular, even square, or small (4) triangles, but watch out for that pb&j!
He didn't seem to think much of Layla or Lily when they were born last spring, he hasn't seen them in some time now, and one of them is walking, one is almost there, both talking a blue shriek, and both cusping on their first birthdays'. Quite a difference from a newborn who, from the point of view of a three or four year old, just makes a LOT of noise and gets held, a lot.
It is clear to me that we have to bring him to CT to see his cousin's (who have come to be known as 'the girls').
He needs to understand, we need to teach him that babies turn into people, little people like him. That there is an evolution, a process.
I expect that he'll either be delighted to have walking, talking, shrieking little people to interact with instead of swaddled babies, who, in his mind are good for nothing. Then again, he may be SUPREMELY annoyed that he really DOES have to put up with this day and night, that he has to keep his books away from little ripping hands, etc etc....and he isn't gonna wanna share his however deeply maligned bathtime with anyone else, ANYONE!
I most especially expect that he won't be happy when he sees me leave and he has to stay, and it won't have anything to do with WHO is leaving, just that he isn't!
He has a short fuse at times. He is used to being the one and only supreme ruler of the adults in his life. He is also, and this is really important, really, exceptionally sweet with little babies. He smiles, he says 'awww' that's cute Gammy', and then he pulls my arm to say 'let's go, we've got stuff to do', because he doesn't want to hang around. So, he knows that new babies are cute and he knows that he can't play with them as he'd choose to.
I was never one of those parents who bought 'I'm the big sister' T-shirts, or books about life changes such as potty training or dealing with a new sibling, I just let it happen. Naturally.
There were so many of them that eventually they saw my belly getting big and knew that the crib was soon to follow.
Melanie, my oldest, was such a little lady about having Annie come into her life and share her room, that it never occured to me that it should be a problem.
When Bailey was born they treated her like a real life doll, and when Rob came along, Mel was six and changing diapers whether they needed it or not. They were also SO thrilled to have a little brother that there was no way they'd be jealous. They used to show him off in public.
My children were always pretty nice to one another. They still are, when they fight, it's heated and can occasionally last for awhile. But even then, it's usually lasting because they perceive it as a 'tough love' situation. There is nothing that they wouldn't do for one another, they all have significant others, or spouses, who have opinions, which more than occasionally cause BIG trouble between the girls.  However, I KNOW that there would be nothing a spouse or boyfriend could say if one of my kids really needed the other, and I had less than nothing to do with that, believe me.
So, along with his attitude toward other new babies, I suppose that knowing that Caleb is an exceptionally nice little boy, that he's the kid who helps the new kid in class EVERY time, and that he's the first kid who made friends with the Down's Syndrome child in his class; and that he gives up his snack to kids who don't have enough that day to the point where I was called into the school to 'talk about it', I should trust. I should have enough faith in him, his basic nature, to know that Caleb may be annoyed, but he'll be nice about it. I don't think that he'll be Temper Tantrum Teddy, especially since that isn't really in his nature.
Nope, Caleb's the kid who, with a bag full of giant legos and some army men can sit alone for hours and very happily entertain himself.
Once he gets used to the idea, begins to understand that this little baby brother or sister is different from the other kids and belongs, in a sense, to him, he'll be GIVING the baby his toys, food, crayons, the toys the HE has the most fun with, you get the picture.
He really is a treasure, these past two years have not only been a learning experience about special needs children. Rather, they've been a wonder.
We have seen this little boy, who arrived speaking gibberish that only his Mother could understand and he could not understand what we were telling him; he was unable to peddle a bike, or to hold a pencil, he didn't know what a crayon was properly used for, and many, many other things that 'normal' kids pick up in the course of a day.
We have, however, had the incredible priviledge of watching him slowly, step by step, bond with his speech therapist and trust her enough to learn to speak, first in words and then one day in a sentence that he used to answer something that I asked him, so to also understand.
Then to bond with his play therapist and so to learn how to color a simple picture, that NO was final, and okay because he could say it too if he didn't want to do something that he was told to do; and that if he held a pencil in a certain way he could write his name! She has taught him to count sequentially from 1 to 20, and he can sing the ABC song, that is AMAZING!
The little boy who arrived at our house in July 2008, who we were finally able to have diagnosed in June of 2009, is nothing AT ALL like the child who started special school and his therapies last summer. Everyone who sees him now, without exception, is awed by the changes, by this remarkable little guy who taught our family the meaning of the word MIRACLE. 
So, no matter what else happens from this point on, he is beginning to obtain the tools that exceed his gentle good humor, and will allow him to survive in our world.
How could I possibly entertain the thought that this child would not absolutely adore his little baby brother or sister?
Not Caleb.
That just isn't possible.