Nolan's Journal

So often I find myself worried about how Jacob, Nolan and Caleb may be affected by having Gavin as a brother. They all seem to go with the flow and are such great big brothers to him, but I wonder sometimes how they are feeling and handling it all deep down. Jacob talks about his feelings about Gavin quite often and Caleb was fairly young when Gavin was born, so he may just think that this is just a way of life. But Nolan is a thinker and keeps a lot of his feelings to himself. I was able to gain some insight on what goes on in his inquisitive little mind recently. This year Nolan's class worked on journals. The following is one of the entries he wrote. It is about one of Gavin's many trips to the hospital. (Note: I've corrected the spelling, although it is more cute to read it his way!)

Gavin Gets Dehydrated (originally spelled dihistrated :) )

Chapter 1:

Have you ever had a baby that had Down syndrome? Our baby, Gavin, has Down syndrome. When a baby has Down syndrome, it is hard for them to learn things. It is bad when a Down syndrome baby gets dehydrated. Gavin got dehydrated. He had to to go to the emergency room.

Chapter 2:

At first mom was with Gavin in the hospital. But Gavin wasn't doing so good. So they had to bring him to the emergency room. Mom came home and told us that Gavin was in the emergency room. I was scared, nervous and worried. A day after that we went to the hospital. We went in an elevator to floor 2. We went in the parking lot. There was a door to the emergency room. It was so scary that my teeth were chattering. When we went in the emergency room there was a place where you would tell a nurse where you were going. Then we would go and wait for a nurse to bring you to where you wanted to go. There was a big white hallway with pictures on the white walls. We found the room next to the place. I saw the computer that had the heart rate on it. It had squiggles to tell how his heart was doing. Then we had to move and we went further down the hall that went left. The floor was slanted down. Then it turned right to opened doors and then turned sharply into the room. The pediasure that he eats was going through a tube into his mouth, but then they put it through his belly. God helped Gavin to get out of the hospital. Because the next day he was back at our house.

While the events he described are accurate, the timing of when and how they occured were a little different, but obviously he was paying attention to a lot and was concerned about what was happening. It makes me sad to know that he was scared during this time and that he has had to go through many days of visiting his brother in the hospital. It also makes me happy because he obviously knows that God is caring for Gavin and us through all of this!

I know all of this has been hard for my mature mind to grasp, so it must be tremendously hard for a child to understand! But, I know that I have learned A LOT and grown a lot in my faith and even as a person, and I pray that the same holds true for our children. I'm quite sure that having an outlet like writing helped Nolan, so I am thankful that they had this opportunity this year. I'm also quite sure that the knowledge of God's love and purpose for us all has helped our boys deal with this and that He will sufficiently supply all that we will ever stand in need of! And, for this I am especially thankful!

"Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God." 2 Corinthians 3:5