A New Adventure :0)

The day came... despite all of my best efforts to stop it.

Caleb started kindergarten.

And so, I swallowed my tears/panic and mustered a smile.  My smile was encouraged along by Caleb's infectious grin and excitement.  The boy was downright giddy waiting for the bus :0)  C has been watching his brother and sisters go off to school for 3 years and has been waiting for his turn for what seems (to him) like FOREVER.   He has cried countless tears over being left behind.  Funny, because as he was thinking...

Today is FINALLY here!...

I was thinking...

How on earth did this happen so quickly?

I have spent 3 years pulling him close, all the while so concious of super important things like BONDING and ATTACHMENT.  Trying to make up for what was never established during the first 2 years of his life. 

It felt so wrong (crazy almost) to let him go on a big yellow bus and spend all day away from me. 

I breathed a silent prayer... "Lord, please help me to know he will be O.K.... did I do enough?  Will he be able to go to school and not feel like he is back at the orphanage?"

I felt a calm come over me, and in that moment I knew...

God has done the work of opening Caleb's heart.  He KNOWS he has a forever Mommy and Daddy who love him so very much.  He knows he has a friend in Jesus wherever he goes.  I knew he was ready.... and so I prayed I would be too.

I can't say it was super easy to let him go, but I can say that as I watched C climb onto that bus, I was overcome with a feeling of JOY that God had brought him to this place and to this moment.  It may seem like a truly ordinary thing... a child leaving his Mommy and climbing onto a bus to go to school, but it is far from ordinary for a little boy who was born in Russia and spent his first 2 years of life in an orphanage there. 

And so, I witnessed yet another miracle. 

I watched my baby go off to kindergarten :0)

The big kids (A and R in 4th grade and Andrew in 5th)- these 3 are back together in the same school again :0)

Being silly!

C and his best bud are in the same class

Super excited before the bus came!

The end of the day- kindergarten was a success!!!!!  C wore his Bears jersey just for Uncle Myrick :0)

C loves his bus driver and had to wave goodbye :0)