Gone and now......

 

Gone are the days of tiny little newborn fingers and toes. 

Gone are the days of smelling the sweet baby smell that all babies seem to have. Best. Smell. Ever. It needs to be bottled and millions of dollars need to be made.

Gone are the whispy tendrils of soft brown hair that adorned their sweet little heads when they were born. Holden would quickly lose his while Ashton's just thinned out. Holden's hair would turn curly and wavy around the ends when it got longer and he got older, while Ashton just had a ton of hair, period. Even his standard short with a little bit of hair haircut shows how thick his hair really is.

Gone are the days of just sitting with a baby in my lap, snuggling them to sleep, and watching their sweet little faces scrunch up as they dreamed about whatever little babies dream of.

Gone are the days of the babies learning how to eat real food, drink out of a real cup and learn all of the other amazing milestones that we take for granted (smiling, cooing, sitting, crawling, standing, pulling up, and lastly, WALKING!).

Gone are the days of gorgeous blue eyes for Ashton, though they were replaced with the most entracing green color of eyes. Holden's eyes quickly went from that normal newborn "slate grey"color to the luscious chocolate brown that they have remained since he was 4months old.

Gone is the worries of whether Holden too, would be autistic like his brother, though later, there would be other worries when we received a dual diagnosis of ADHD and Anxiety.

Gone are the days of wondering whether Ashton would ever be able to interact with the world as we know it. Square peg, meet round hole. Fortunately, in the last 15months he's really come into his own and found a niche that he loves being a part of. Piece by piece, he's learning to be an amazing contributor to society. People love him wherever he goes and he's just a joy to have around. I can't foretell what his future holds, but if the last year is any indication, his life will be enriching, peaceful, loving, funny and fulfilling all rolled into one.

Gone are the days that the boys let me pick out their clothes for school. I got to have input into their first day of school clothes, but by and large, they pick their own clothes every morning. 

Gone are the days that they painstakingly let me take oodles and oodles of pictures for me to share. I had to strong-arm them to get the few good ones I got on their first day of school. The only reason why I got them? I bribed them with donuts!

Now I am the mom of a 9th grade high school freshman; a high schooler?!?

Now I am also the mom of a 6th grade middle school student; middle school?!?

Now I no longer have any children that will again grace the halls of a primary or intermediate school.

Now the battle begins to start figuring out what sort of plans we need to start putting in place for Ashton, for his post high school transition. Did you know you need to start worrying about that, so soon into their high school careers?! I didn't! YIKES!

Now the real work begins in teaching Holden organizational skills that will hopefully carry him through middle school and on into high school. It's been a tough first week of school, but I have faith that he'll manage. He's getting from class to class and to lunch, PE and his electives just fine. It's making sure everything comes home that needs to. I'm tempted to make a list for him to keep in his locker, but not sure if that'll go over well with him or not.

Now the worries begin about round two of preteen hormones, attitudes and behaviors. We've been very lucky with Ashton and now, at 14.5years old, he's really sailing through puberty quite well. A few, minor issues but nothing like I was expecting. If anyone is going to cause us major problems, I think it will be Holden. He's so determined and headstrong stubborn, that we are already starting to butt heads and he's only 11.5years old. A lot of his attitude I think is coming from his impulsivity due to ADHD, but I have to believe that some of it is just normal, preteen stuff. Granted, if I remember correctly, this was the age Ashton started giving us more issues, so long as we get through the next couple of years with our sanity intact, we should be good to go. The key is really keeping Holden busy (check!), keeping him well-rested (check!) and keeping him involved with active things (check!). 

The boys had an incredible first week of school and I couldn't be more proud. Ashton is walking independently from first bell to second bell and leads his teacher to his third and fourth bells. He's doing his lunch independently (go figure! if there's anything this boy knows how to do, is to make sure he's fed and EAT!). So proud that the transition to high school has went far better than I had imagined it would. Middle school is going well for Holden, if we can just get him to remember to bring everything home that he needs to bring home. It's a huge transition from elementary school to middle school so we'll see how well things fall into place this second week of school before I start panicking. He's got his first test in his math class tomorrow and he feel pretty confident. We'll see.

So, gone are my babies and in their place now are these two young men who are incredibly handsome, funny, smart and the lights of my life.