Eli

It is so hard for me to grasp how far this little guy has come in just one year. He had so much to contend with - learning to communicate, a new home, family, and school. And he's done more than excel, he's knocked our socks off with how quickly he has learned and adjusted to all of the changes. I can say confidently that I would not have done have so well in his shoes.

Our next project will be working on the funky picture face you see above. That has got to go.

But that's not what I wanted to tell you about today.
For the past year, we've really struggled with concepts of empathy and compassion with Eli. These are things that we model to our children from their earliest hours, yet were not modeled to Eli during so many of his crucial formative years. But I knew, from the moment I saw him that a sweet and tender spirit lived within this boy. Though I've had cause to doubt that intuition several times this year, deep down I knew that if we would feed and cultivate what was already in his heart, it would eventually rise to the surface.

In the beginning, Eli was all about what he had, what he could get, and whether or not he had more than the other children. If he received candy at school, he was careful to save the empty wrapper so that he could wave it triumphantly in front of his siblings. But something has changed - he's no longer counting french fries to ensure that someone else doesn't have more than he does. He's no longer coming to me in tears because he just noticed that Josh has one more Bionicle than he does. Which leads me to the story I did come here to tell you:

Last week, Eli came home from school the proud recipient of a Hostess cupcake.
He was very excited about this cupcake, folks. Instead of eating it right away, he decided to save it and it sat on the counter for almost a week. The other night he asked for it, unwrapped the cupcake, and asked me for a knife.
"Oh great," I thought, "he's going to mangle the thing before eating it." I even wondered if maybe he was making a process out of it to ensure that his siblings were fully aware that he was in possession of a very yummy chocolate cupcake. Eli took the knife, and carefully divided that little bitty cupcake into four equal portions, and then he handed one to each of the other kids. This meant that Eli enjoyed exactly one bite of the cupcake.
Joel and I were floored.

He did it without any fanfare, and was very excited that he was able to give something to his brother and sisters. He insisted they all sit at the table and enjoy their nibble together. It was a wonderful opportunity not only to praise Eli for this amazing act of selflessness (Would I have shared my only cupcake? Um . . . are ya crazy??), but to point out his example to the other three children.

What a perfect example of Christ Eli showed in that moment - to give everything that he had to those he loves. I know that God was glorified by that simple action, and it made me see that through all of the battles we've been fighting, God has been working in Eli's heart. Christmas definitely came early for me this year!

Oops! I almost forgot to update on what we've heard so far with his speech. He had a new audio gram done this week, which produced the exact same results we've seen all along. The school speech therapist is going to have a look at him and we'll go from there. The audiologist thinks that Eli is just a very talented boy who has been reading our lips and mouth movements very carefully all this time until he was able to imitate them. I completely agree with the 'very talented' part! He will probably begin receiving some speech services, since he is very enthusiastic about learning to speak. In fact, he's driving me a little batty pointing out everything in the house and wanting me to teach him to say it - all day long - and I mean everything from coupons to the labels on soup cans!