Amidst all the changes that have been happening, the one person who will be making soooo many adjustment is this little boy:
Every time I think about all the adjustments that my son will make, I feel like I have no right to complain. He’s going to have it bad the next few weeks and I’m really, really praying everything will be easy for him.
In two weeks, he will be adjusting to a new house. Given that it’s actually my parents’ house and he’s familiar with it, I know it should be the easiest adjustment. Still, I’ve talked to him a lot of times about it just to mentally prepare him. I know it’s still difficult to leave the only house he’s ever really known as ‘home’ and adjust to another one.
After the move, he’ll basically just have five days to adjust before he takes on another thing – a new school. We’ve already taken him to visit the school he will go to in the next few months. He was curious about the school, the teachers, the books, the school furniture, the fishes in the office (he misses the animals in hedcen!), and many more. Although he seems to have taken it quite easily, I am anticipating some, hopefully, very few problems once school really starts. The school is just a short walk away from my parents’ house and I plan to do the school routine with him during the first five days of our stay there, just to get him ready for the first day. I hope he likes it there because he loves hedcen already and it breaks my heart to take that away from him. More than anything, it also breaks my heart for him to be apart from my sister. They are BFFs and not being able to see each other every day will be difficult on both of them.
After the new school adjustment, he’ll be given maybe just a month before the biggest addition to our family arrives. For months now, we’ve been ‘brainwashing’ him about the upcoming sibling. Although he seems to be doing beautifully with the idea of another baby in the family, Ramil and I know the idea and the real thing are two very different things. But I know my boy, he’ll struggle a little bit but he’s very caring and loving so although it’s going to be difficult I know he’s going to love having a baby around.
After the baby addition, Mateo will be given around five months of reprieve from all the adjustment. By December, Ramil will be going off to Brunei to start his work there. I’m foreseeing this as the BIGGEST adjustment Mateo will have to make. Amidst all the changes he will experience, this is the only one where he will not have both Ramil and me physically with him to offer him support and reassurance and I know this will be an ultimate test of his maturity. Despite their squabbles, Ramil and Mateo are very, very close to each other and the fact that everyone will be adjusting will make it even more difficult. We’re banking on the time investment we will be making before Ramil leaves, the time when Ramil and I both stay and work from home. Hopefully that time will provide more security for Mateo for when Ramil leaves.
Hopefully, we’ll all miss each other for only a month. I’m hoping Mateo will be very, very excited to see and be with Ramil so that the adjustment to a new country will just be underneath that excitement. But then again, it’s not just adjusting to a new country, it’s adjusting to a new house, a totally new environment, a new school, and many, many more.
Needless to say, the next few months will be a test on my son’s resilience. I believe that kids are good with changes. In fact, better than many adults so it just might be me talking here. Who knows, everything will happen without a hitch for him.