IT Just Works For Us...

I started writing today about TNI… then I stopped. Another topic popped up in my little head.

We’ll leave TNI for tomorrow (Target Nutrition Intervention – go ahead, go do some research while you wait for tomorrow).

A topic that is consuming me today is where I fit in this whole Down syndrome thing.. where my husband fits, where my children fit.

And you see, somehow, someway, we all just fit. Each one of us are a puzzle piece. We all interlock perfectly and we all just fit.

This just works for us. Maybe we are all following this journey with our hearts. Somehow we all have the same dreams and hopes and we are all traveling on this one single road, together.

At times I wonder, do other families, with or without a child with Down syndrome, do they wonder if we are “too” involved. I am sure to others it might seem like this whole Down syndrome thing is just consuming us and our whole world just perspires with Ds.

Um –maybe that is so. But it just works.

The girls, they jump up and down when they know we are going to the Resource Center, obviously they enjoy it just as much as we do. They love the music therapy and the art classes. They love seeing the new babies and they love getting hugs from Joshua. They simply love it.

Once they cried when we couldn’t make an art class. Yes, they cried. We don't push it on them, it just comes naturally to them. It's almost as if they don't even remember life without Ethan. And to be honest, I don't even remember life before Ethan. We are all swallowed with happiness that Ethan brings. And if the girls ever chose to not participate in an event related to Ethan or Ds, that would be just as fine as well. If anything, they are dying to bring their friends with them to meetings and events. They are anxious to show the world how blessed their lives are.

We always leave the Resource Center happy and feeling blessed, almost as good as we feel when we leave church. Sometimes on our drive back home from the RC, we don’t even talk, we just sit there the whole way, quietly, I think we are all thinking the same things at that time, and words aren’t even needed.

We are just like any other family that has a child with a disability, but at the same time we are not. I think everyone has a special calling in life. And I think we have found ours. Ours is to help others, to become as involved as we possibly can so we can help others. Also, adoption. Not everyone has a child with Ds and immediately wants to adopt another child with Ds.. but we did.

We just knew this is where we belong. We just get “it”. Our “IT”. Every family has their own “it” to get.

Sunday we all sat together to watch Extreme Home Makeover ( the Lutz family). Gabby asked if we could adopt more children with Ds. SHE ASKED herself. I think we all feel it and we all get it as a family.

Our girls, their lives are pretty normal. Today they start dance at school. They come home and do homework and play with their friends. They go to sleepovers and talk about boys. They like to look pretty and paint their nails. We talk about school, we talk about their friends.

But they know they have a brother with Down syndrome, and they talk about their brother to anyone willing to listen. They wear their Buddy Walk shirts from last year to their friends house. They stand up to bullies and correct them on the R word… somehow, they make it work.

Daddy goes to work and talks to  his buddies, I am pretty sure they talk about fishing and hunting, and hey, I am probably sure they also talk about pretty girls. But Poppa Bear also talks about his son, how much he loves him and his own desire to adopt.

I go to work, I drink my coffee with the girls, we gossip, we laugh, we talk about shopping and what we did the past weekend. We talk about our daughters, and oh my how our daughters will soon be teenagers! But they know my son has Down syndrome, and we do, we talk about him and how much we love him.


We have our date nights without the kids, but all we do is talk about our new life and our new direction... we are in the process of planning days with just the girls and no Ethan, in the meantime Ethan tags along, because guess what, they want Ethan to come! But it just works.

We just continue to take it all in one day at a time.

This is our life, and it just works for us.