Has it really been 7 years?

My baby boy is 7 years old today. I can't beleive it. It seems like yesterday I had just found out I was pregnant. It was late July and I was at a Mary Kay Seminar. I thought I might me and was so excited. To be fair to Darin I waited until I got home to take a test (as much as the other ladies wanted me to take one while we were in Dallas). Thank goodness we lived in Fort Worth and I did not have a long drive home. That following Monday, was my first day back teaching and we were opening a new school. I could not wait to tell Madonna Kennedy my principal who at the time had become an adoptive mother in North Texas to me. By the end of that year we had 7 pregnant teachers and 3 of us were in the Special Ed department. I remember going to the doctor in November to find out if Dalton was a boy or a girl. We were going to find out if it we were having a Dalton or a Brighton that day. My hopes were so high for a little girl. I had vision of a beautiful pink nursery for our guest bedroom. With big cursive letters painted on the wall "Brighton", like they had in the Brighton store. But I knew in the back of my mind it was a boy. Everyone else I knew that was pregnant was having a girl and I knew the odds. I tried not to be disappointed when she told me it was a little boy. Little Dalton James. You should have seen Darin stand a little taller when they told us. He had made a man child. (I thought this was a joke until the men at church the following Sunday congradulated him on for the boy with puffed up chests.) Being the only son and his dad being an only child he was proud to have a Koenig son. The more I talked to him and called him by name he became more real. I remembered what a beautiful baby my little brother was and I began to think that little boys could be pretty babies to. I did his nursery in Frog Prince and got ready for my little boy to arrrive. I taught school up until the Friday before my Monday due date and had Dalton early Sunday morning. He was so pretty and perfect when he came. I wanted a blue eyed baled baby and I got a brown eyed little boy with little brown girls all over his head. But he had and still does the most kissable cheeks and we were all in love. On the day we were to bring him home they took him for tests and his billiribbon count was way to high and they rushed him to Cook's Children's hospital. It was the most empty feeling in the world to have to leave the hospital with empty arms. The worst feeling was going home to a house with out my baby. It was funny how he had never even been there and everything else was the same as it had alway been but it was all wrong. It was lonely and completely empty. We spent the next seven days like that. Getting up each day going to the ICU at Cooks and waiting for answers. I felt like I had to ask permission to hold my baby. There were nurses and other parents always around and not enough chairs to sit in. The only alone time to bond was at his feeding time when I could nurse him. It was our only time together for seven whole days. I did not feel like a "real" mom.

Finally we brought him home for three weeks and took him to his doctors appointments at one month and he was hospitalized again. His chord had not fallen off and was infected. We were again at Cook's and he had an IV drip in his little head. At least we had our own room and he was taken away from me again. Seven days later we were home again. I went back to work in the fall and it was a horrible long 9 months. I used up all of my sick leave days the first semester and quit in the Spring. The next two years were wonderful. I loved the days when it was just me and Dalton. Play time and naps. He was the most fun little toy to play and cuddle with.
Dalton has been an entertainer from the time he could control his facial expressions. I remember he had what we called the "Squinchy" smile where he would wrinkle up his entire face at people and he would do it over and over again to make people laugh. At 18 months old he had the run of the church where Darin was the pastor. He had his little Cowboy hat, holster with two cap guns and he would draw on people coming in the back doors. He would point his little gun or finger and yell, "Dow!' and the teen age boys would fall over dead. He sat in the press box at the JV games and help make the announcements on Thursday nights. The retired ladies took turns taking him home with them to play and the teens passed him around at the Friday night football games. That year he got his first electric guitar and microphone and was quite the entertainer on it. He loved to sing for people that came over. He was into the Wiggles and Blues Clues.
By three Dalton was adjusting to having a baby sister and was the best big brother. He sang his first solo at FBC Wimberly with me at a 5th Sunday sing. He sang "Here I am to Worship, Hear I am to Fall down...." At the end of the song he bowed and said "Thank you, Thank you berry much." into the microphone and jumped off the stage running down the isle, giving high fives to the out stretched hands along the way. The infatuation at three was Toy Story and The Incredibles.

Dalton still loved to sing at four and would stand on the fire place at Nonna's house and sing with the Ukulele, "Zip-a-de-du-da" word for word. At the end of four Dalton started baseball and was the littlest on the team and was still the entertainer. He would call out while getting the plate,"I'm the Great Bambino, Babe." Four and five was all about Spiderman. Dalton wanted to be Spider Man and I thought the costume was going to rot off of him because he would not take it off long enough to let me wash it. Dalton was also a professional ring bearer by the end of four because he was in two weddings that year and stole the show. At the first wedding he gave thumbs up to the groom as he got down the long isle and winked at his little girl friend in the audience. I am kicking myself for not having a video camera at the reception because the boy danced up a storm. He took suit coat off, twirled it around his head and stole the show. I think he danced with every pretty college age girl there that night.

At five Dalton had to adjust to another little sister and half day kindergarden. He was the entertainer there too stealing his teacher's heart with his quick wit. But, that did not save him from his first trip to the office. Scissors were not for Light Saber fighting and his endless talking earned him the trip. When his principal asked him, "What would your mother think of this?" He said, "Well she's out of town she won't know. I'm going home with my Nonna today." Then when I got him on the phone and told him how disappointed I was with him he answered in his best Eddie Haskel voice,"Yes, mam. I am very disappointed in myself mam." Star Wars became the huge thing in our house at 6 along with Pirates.

Dalton has always had a tender heart toward the Lord and his prayer life. At age four, when we started our church in New Braunfels, Dalton prayed each night for all of his "peeps" to come to his daddy's church. He passed out invite cards to all that he knew and was the little host when his friends would show up on Sundays. He accepted Jesus into his heart at six and was baptised that summer. I will never forget one night hearing him talking in his room. I came around the corner and saw him kneeling on his toy box and his little hand folded and he was praying in front of the open window. He said,"Dear God, Thank you for the trees and the grass and Please help me to be good at school tomorrow, so I can go to Nonna's house. I know that you can do this because you are all powerful and wonderful. Bless Mama, Daddy, Brighton and Baby Madie. Amen." Then he stood up shut the window and hopped back into bed.

We put Dalton into full day kinder this year and it has been an adjustment. We pray for green days and are working on talking. But his teacher tells me that he still has the most tender heart. The two special ed. boys won't come into the room unless he's there. I love that he still hugs his two little best buddies and they yell at each other, "I love you!", when they are leaving. He is very artistic and loves to draw. He is my little social butter fly that does not meet a stranger. Dalton is all little boy. He picks at his sister, only has kisses for his mama (won't let either grandma kiss him) and wants to be his daddy when he grows up. I can't believe it has been seven years since Baby Dalton first melted our hearts with his chocolate brown eyes and chubby little cheeks.