Growing Up!

My eldest son Mike (Micheal) is four years old. He is a very curious, adventuress, and silly little boy. When Mike was born he was born five and half weeks early. His birth is my eyes was the worst day of my life. I had all these thoughts and ideas of how it would go. I give birth to him, hold him and breast feed him and stare down at him in awe. To my surprise it did not go that way. He was born with the pre-mature lung disease that can occur in pre-mature babies, and especially in baby boys. I gave birth to him and he was wisked away from me. I never got to hold him, give him a kiss on his cheek, or even tell him welcome to the world. He was so sick that he had to be taken right away to the nursery where he had 2 docs and 5 nurses watching over his steady for 16 hours till a medi-vac plane came to take him to the Stollery Hosptial in Edmonton. It was not till then that I got to hold, wich was 3 days after I gave birth to him. I felt like the most horrible mother in the world for giving birth to my son to early. Anything anyone would tell me to try to make me feel better just would not work. I felt like it was my fault, and that I was the one that did this to him. It took me about 2 years to get over the fact of it and come to really realize that it was not my fault for his very early arrival. Years have past and I have a very Healthy and Happy 4 year old. Watching him grow and learn and become this most amazing little human being has been the most amazing thing to watch every day. I feel so luck to be a mother to him. Over the past 2 months my husband and I have really noticed a difference in Mike's attitude and seems to have done a lot of growing up. He does not want me to help him get dressed. Or to pour the milk into his cereal. Help him put his gloves on or even his jacket. He brushes his teeth, with my supervision, and he does a really great job! He has become very independent these days...it makes me very happy, but deep down inside I have this sense of not being needed as much as I did when he was so little and so helpless, when his life was totally in my hands. Yes, I know he is still only 4 but the needs of a 4 year is totally different then a 4 month old. His needs now are to play trains with him on the floor. To teach him is ABC's and 123's. How to treat people with respect, care and love. How to show Liam how to do things and the list goes on and on. I can not believe how time flies when you have children and how fast they grow up. For me it feels like x-mas comes every 6 months, opposed to when I was kid it just never seemed to come fast enough. I wish time would slow down just a little...a few more hours in the day. I now totally understand the meaning of enjoy your kids to the fullest cause by the time you know it they will be graduating from high school and heading of to college or university! Mike goes into Kindergarten next year...wow...kindergarten...really, next year??? Man oh man! Liam is 15 months now, and I just all of a sudden feel really old. Haha. But these years of them growing up, Im so looking forward to. Me teaching them new things, and them teaching me things as well. I have so much to look forward to!