Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Another late night blog session.  It's even later tonight than it was last.  By the end of this 31 day experiment I'll no longer sleep, subsisting merely on diet pop and the tingly feeling I get in my hands when I've been typing too much.

I spent the entire day today taking a test to become a YMCA swim official.  It's a very long, drawn out process to be a swim official.  But it's important.  I even get to wear a uniform.  Well, kinda.  If you know anything about our kids, you know they're swimmers.  Kelly will be, too, no doubt.  Swimming runs in families.  If one kid is a swimmer, most likely, they're all swimmers.  Look at Michael Phelps. He started swimming because his sisters swam.

So when Kelly was born, word about his diagnosis spread quickly through our swim team.  The first time I brought him to a practice, the coach came up to meet him.  He hesitated then asked, "Do you think he'll... that he'll be able to... "

"Swim?" I finished for him.  "Yeah, I don't see why he wouldn't be able to."

And that's kind of been our attitude toward raising Kelly.  I can't imagine really what he won't be able to do.  I mean, of course, within reason.  He won't be an astrophysicist or hold the title "World's Fastest Man."  He won't be an air traffic controller, a professional hockey player, or an international spy.  But then again, most likely, neither will my other children.

The difference is that when you have your fresh from God, tiny bundle of brand new baby in your arms, you can dream about those things.  You dream about them pitching a perfect game until they announce at the end of season awards ceremony that they "had a terrible time" and "hate baseball."  You dream about them getting a scholarship and working at NASA only to realize that it'll be a miracle if you get them out of high school.  The dreams you once had when they were newborns are taken away slowly as the person they are to become is revealed.  Then you find yourself creating new dreams, like swimming championships and early release for good behavior.

But when that newborn bundle of joy is diagnosed with Down syndrome, those dreams are ripped from your heart.  You don't have time to develop new dreams right away.  You mourn all that you lost, the child you lost, the dreams, the future.  It takes time to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and rebuild.  And when you do, the dreams are different.  The goals are altered and amended.  The world you see around you is changed.

Someone once told me that with Down syndrome the lows are lower, but the highs are so much higher that you forget about the lows.

I didn't really understand that until Kelly started crawling.  He'd worked so hard to do it.  For months he was so close. The moment that he actually executed a four point crawl was shear joy.  Bliss.  I bragged on him for weeks, till everyone got sick of hearing the story (he crawled on the dirty floor of a CC's pizza, grubbing after a dirty old pizza crust -- it's a great, bloggable story).

And now, Kelly, at 21 months old, took his first steps this very week.  Just tiny little shuffle steps.  Two of them.  But they were beautiful.  Like breaking through the finish line.  Or finding the cure for cancer.  Everyone at the Y was cheering him on, chanting his name, clapping.  I had tears streaming down my face and as I closed my eyes, I realized all my dreams were coming true after all.