I have written about this before (2010 post)…. But my feelings are still the same.
Let me repeat it:
Ethan is NOT a burden on us or his siblings.
Yes, he frustrates me and he intentionally pushes my buttons, but so do my girls. And if he frustrates me is because he refuses to eat what I want him to eat, or when he fights me off to dress him for school, or how he thinks he is being so cute when I fix his hair and he goes and messes it up and laughs…or how about when he likes to get completely naked and run around the house and scoot his booty all over the place.
Yes, he makes his sisters cry, he breaks their stuff and yanks their hair, or how he likes to wrestle and runs up to his sisters with his tiny hands clasped together over his head and powerfully smacks them on the head and how he loves to annoy them by turning the tv off as they are watching their favorite show. BUT I am most definitely sure all little brothers do that to their sisters (or some of it). Especially if they are as cute as Ethan, they know they can get away with murder.
They are always eager to run to him!
Sure, he is still little and he is “cute”…. And yeah he might outgrow his cuteness one day (as I once read the following from a person as she tried to justify the abortion of a child with Down syndrome) and Ethan might be a “low functioning “person with Ds and I’ll be stuck changing diapers on a grown man for the rest of his life –seriously someone once wrote that. Truth is no one has a future telling magic crystal ball. I have absolutely no idea as to what tomorrow brings. I do not know off all the great capabilities that Ethan possesses until we are at a place where he can show me…. so just the way I do with my girls, we will take each day, love unconditionally, strive for the best and go from there. He will never be a burden because I will never see his life as a burden. Whatever challenges we run into, we will tackle them just the same way I will have to tackle challenges with the girls.
And I am sure his sisters will never give up on him as well. Maybe one day they will curse Down syndrome for the difficulties it might cause for their brother or even them, but we will all make it out alive and much stronger.
It is a shame how there are doctors that will tell their patients that abortion is the best option because their unborn child with Down syndrome will be a burden. And as a mother of a child with Down syndrome I can attest and say that Ethan is far from ever being a burden.
So be on the lookout for next’s year post of how Ethan is still not a burden. I will preach it and live it for the rest of my life.
-erika
Loved this Erika!
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