My oldest son plays Upward basketball. If you are not familiar with Upward, it is a Christian-based basketball program where everyone plays regardless of your ability or disability. It is non-competitive and by the end of the year....everyone will score. At the end of the season, they have a year-end celebration. Rewind to last year....the celebration was on my birthday...5 days after our little peanut was born. 5 days after we were given news that rocked our world....questioned our beliefs....made us sad...you know, I've shared how I felt after Hailey was born. I was living in a fog for those first few weeks. My husband thought it was a good idea if we both attended for my oldest son. He needed to know that his parents loved all 3 of our children equally. That day was for him. We left Hailey in the hospital...looking tiny and struggling in the NICU. We still weren't sure what her medical condition was...we still did not know much about Down syndrome. At the beginning of the celebration, they had the cheerleaders perform on stage. I sat there with tears streaming down my face. Hailey will never do that. Hailey will never play basketball.....STOP! Wait a minute!
Fast forward to last night's basketball celebration. All 5 of us attended because that is what Brayden wanted...he wanted us to all go as a family. Bray sat with his team, the other 4 of us sat several rows back. Jason and I passed Hailey between us...she is quite squiggly and had to see everything. Cackling as she switched parents. Similar to last year, the cheerleaders walked on stage and I had tears streaming down my face. These weren't sad tears for Hailey's future...they were sad tears for our past. I was ignorant a year ago...who is going to stop her from cheering or playing basketball....do I think for one second that we won't be attending her basketball celebration a few years down the road....NOPE! Nothing has stopped her yet, I don't plan on anything stopping her ever.
A year ago, I never thought we would feel normal...that we wouldn't be happy...that Down syndrome would be a cloud that would follow us everywhere that would dominate our lives, our world. I'm quite happy to report, that is not the case. We are just as "normal" as the family with 3 "typical" children. We are happy and loving our life with 3 wonderful children! Thank you Hailey for showing mom how normal our life is!
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| The girl is still in love with her car! |
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| Feeding herself mashed potatoes |
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| Thanks mom...one of my favorites! |
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| Love this shirt! |
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| This smile makes me so happy!!! |
I often marvel at how much Ben has taught me and he's just 14 months old. Our little ones are such great teachers without even trying!
ReplyDeleteExcellent post! Btw, I love your blog header.
ReplyDeleteI replied to your comment and just realized I don't have your email address and can't find it, so please forgive me for replying in your comments! This is what I said: I'm glad I'm not the only one! I feel like I'm not doing such a great job advocating because I'm only in my comfort zone on FB and my blog! There have only been a handful of times that I've interrupted and said something like hey could we stop with that at word please? My example about 'my husband does such and such because he's such a retard like that" happened just the other week at MOPS. I had no idea how to interrupt her in that situation and most of those ladies don't know about Kayla because she's in school and I just go there with Lucas. Anyway, I'm rambling :) Please feel free to share!
ReplyDeleteHappy 1st birthday to your sweetie! She is so adorable! I love your header too :)
She is too cute for words. She is going to rock that cheer outfit someday :)
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