we are spending the week in florida to visit angela's grandmother...in talking with people about the boys we have talked a lot about caleb and his desire to help others. both boys love to help - when we arrived to our room here after grocery shopping jared systematically removed each item from a grocery bag and brought it to me in the kitchen...after each item he would go back and get another item and so on and so on...
caleb however seems to be drawn to kids that are a bit different. two examples of this: toddler time at the community center - a child is brought in who is developmentally disabled and cannot maneuver around the room to get his own toys - caleb notices this (at around 18 months old) and brings the child some toys so that he too can play... at a park last week - there is a group of developmentally disabled young adults using the playground - caleb finds his way over to a young man sitting on the slide - he reaches out to him and says hi and looks as if he's going to try and sit down with the young man - the young man reaches out and gently grabs caleb's arm - caleb just stands there and watches.
now what makes this incredible to me is that clearly i work with the type of child that caleb appears to understand. as we all know caleb is not biologically my child however we chose a donor based not only on looks (looks like he could be my brother) but also based on personality. we were given the opportunity to listen to an interview done with the donor and one of the first things he said is that he wanted to work with children special needs...it was something that drew us to him even more. he also wanted to get a degree in social work...my grandfather was a social worker. it is incredible to me that when i look at my son i see bits and pieces of myself. a child who is in no way genetically a part of me exhibits behaviors that are intrinsically a part of my being. caleb does not ever see me interact with my clients - he has never in his conscious memory been to the clinic and seen the kids i work with however something in him just knows.
call it nature, call it nurture, call it whatever you want to call it.
i however look at my son and see a part of me...a part of a grandfather i never knew. i like to believe that i am very much like that grandfather and therefore that caleb is too like him...
i look at my son and regardless of biology and genetics know that he is as much a part of me as i am apart of him!
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