MiniWarrior

MiniWarrior turned 9 this past week.

One moment he's mini-man and then in a blink he snuggles his stuffed cat and is my little boy again.

I was asked once, by someone very close to me, if I had the choice to make again on whether to adopt MiniWarrior or not...would I make the same choice?

My first instinct was to respond with "Yes! Of course!" But...I allowed myself to pause and look back on the past 9 years that MiniWarrior has been in my life.

I felt again the weight of him as his birth mother placed him in my arms when he was 2 days old. The overwhelming feeling of knowing I was a part of the most precious gift one could give to another human being; the absolute bravery of the act of placing your child into an other's arms for them to raise.

Laying on the floor on a mattress in his room listening to him breathe that first night in my house. Waking to the early morning light in his room and knowing my life had become connected to this 7lb being and I would never be the same again.

The busy baby year, little sleep, working full time, laughing as his personality developed. The agony of watching my perfect baby suddenly react to loud sounds and lights with twisted body rage.

The frustration of 3 years searching for answers to something supposedly only I could see as "wrong behavior". The first diagnosis of Autism from a kind and wonderful child psychologist.

The diagnosis of silent epilepsy...and the beginning of medication.

The stunned amazement after the first dose of medication of sitting on the bed with my (then husband) listening in wonderment to our son talk and talk and talk for the first time.

The sight of tears in MiniWarrior's Dad's eyes as he told me how he heard MiniWarrior singing in the backseat of his car as he drove him home from preschool.

The frustration of watching him struggle with school and life. Watching him struggle to keep his little action figure guys from falling as his body flapped and jerked in uncontrolled movement. Feeling my heart break when, after watching them fall for the 10th time, MiniWarrior sobbed and begged me to "fix him" because he didn't want to be Autistic anymore.

MiniWarrior's absolute love for people. His chocolate colored eyes sparkling with delight when a stranger responds kindly to his bazillion questions.

The single thought that has never once changed in the 9 years this little boy has been with me: "He is such an incredible kid".

Would I have changed the decision I made 9 years ago?

Not in this lifetime.

Or the next.

Or the next.