Our Jacob has brought a couple firsts to our house. Firsts that after 10 children you just don't really expect and frankly, so far, would have lived a happy full life without experiencing them.
The first first was that Jacob initiated me into answering the age old, "you're not my mother" response of adopted children. Amazingly none of his previous adopted siblings had spoken these words. The last time I remember him, well, yelling it at me, mere minutes later he was asking for my help with something. Clearly, he didn't mean anything vitriolic by making this declaration. Frankly it was rather amusing that he could be so intensely angry one minute and not even realize how ironic it was to request my aide the next.
Secondly, Jacob was diagnosed with learning disabilities. Even though we've dealt with a variety of learning disabilities this label was new to us. He has come so very far and may even catch up, thus removing this label at some point.
Then today the dentist pronounced that he has an overbite and will need braces at some point. My reaction with each of these firsts has been - really God we couldn't just have rested on our laurels and delved into the extensive knowledge we've already gathered as ridiculously experienced parents? Then after I give it some thoughtful consideration I think, well, we won't have to be the older people making sure they do crosswords to ward off dementia. No, we'll be too busy developing more strategies to cope with the new challenges our children bring every day.
We often receive the compliment - "oh, but you look so young". This is very flattering, but sometimes I think that's because no one would believe two 56 yr. olds would be stupid enough to be parenting children as young as 8. I now am declaring it's a strategy for evading dementia. So, if you too wanna stay young - parent your old age away. All the cool people are doing it.
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