Six Years Ago Today...

Six years ago today, shortly after midnight, I was driving myself to St. John's hospital in Leavenworth, Kansas, scared out of my wits. Not quite 26 weeks along with twins, I knew we were in trouble. By 5:30 AM I had heard Carley's only cry and had gotten my first look at a little boy that I would forever refer to as Trouble.

The doctors said Corey wouldn't make it. Bruised all over his body, a little 1 lb. 9 oz. wimpy white boy with crappy lungs and a grade IV brain bleed, there was no hope. Daddy didn't believe it and demanded just one more ultrasound before we made our final decisions. Thank God for Daddy.

What Corey put up with in the NICU just to prove those doctors wrong. Two months on the high frequency vent, waiting for Mommy to finally get a chance to hold him. Three surgeries, sixteen chest tubes, one crazy moment when Corey pulled his own intubation tube out, feedings by the milliliter, and lots of visitors in and out; it was a busy time for Corey.

Finally, after three months; home on oxygen, nurses and therapists in and out the door. Trips to the clinic, sleep apnea monitors going off all night long, oxygen tubes draped across the ceiling so Corey could play in the living room with his brothers. One time Corey drank 4 oz. in one feeding. It only happened once.

After six months, the monitor and the oxygen were gone and nurses quit coming. Corey grew. He stared at things that spun, he stared at his two little fingers. He giggled at his brothers. He refused to drink milk. He started wearing eye patches. His AFO's came soon after, colorful braces to wear on his legs.

By the age of two he could sit up. He crawled along tile floors, hypnotized by any straight grout line he could find. He was not quite walking if I recall, but just about. He loved toys that lit up. A few months later, he decided that he really could talk. It was sentences from the start. Within a year, he'd learned the alphabet by staring (he REALLY liked staring,) at his wooden ABC blocks. A few months later he was reading and forever asking, "What's that say?"

He hopped on a bus and started school the day after his third birthday. He caught on quickly and was the darling of his elementary school. He learned the Pledge of Allegiance and Calendar in no time flat. He loved reading all of the signs in his school building, pointing them out every time he passed them by. Every time.

A few years later and it's February 19, 2009, and Corey is a BIG boy, sailing through Kindergarten, finally writing out all those words he learned to read so long ago. An ace with the computer and a pain in his brothers' sides. He's still the cute little boy that all the big kids fawn over at school; everybody knows Corey. He's the littlest in his class even though he finally made the charts at the doctors office a month ago. (5th percentile in height. Woo-hoo!)
He's sweet, he's smart, and he will talk your ear off. He's healthy and he's clumsy. His vision and coordination aren't the best, but he'll shrug off a full frontal collision into a wall without batting an eye. (Unless you witness his accident, then he might go for a little snuggle before being distracted by something more important than you.)

And today Corey is SIX. Six, that's BIG BOY age, people. He's the same age as his big brother so that means he's almost an adult. And he gets to go to Kalahari this weekend, because he's SIX. So there! (Think Corey when you read this paragraph...)

So, okay, Trouble, I mean Corey, Mommy hopes you have the happiest Sixth Birthday ever!

And Happy Birthday to Carley, too.