I promise I don’t spend every day combing the internet for Down syndrome related stories. Of course, when I run across one, if it strikes a chord with me, I save it for use in October. But I don’t spend much time seeking out DS related materials. In fact, the piece that was the inspiration for today’s post was something I happened upon as a recommended link on a completely unrelated article I was reading. Over in the sidebar, I saw Top 5 Things That I Like About Having a Kid With Down Syndrome. I loved the idea of the piece, and before I even clicked on the link I knew I would write a list of my own. I couldn’t commit to naming my top five, so I went for five things I’m loving right now, five things (in no particular order) that make me know with certainty that this path has changed me for the better.
1. Linc is loved by pretty much every person he meets. I know someday he may be thrown into a group of teenagers who bully him or call him names. I know strangers on the street may one day say something to break his little heart. But so far, we haven’t seen it. So far, Lincoln has charmed the pants off of pretty much every single person who has ever come into contact with him. Linc is like a local celebrity many of the places we go, and it has been that way since he was a baby. He flirts with cashiers, gives high five to the students lined up at his school, waves to strangers passing by. He just has this way of drawing people in and winning them over. It’s a beautiful thing to behold.
2. Linc has an enormous personality. Perhaps this is the reason behind #1, but I have never seen someone say so much without saying a darn thing. He signs with such personality and emphasis, he might as well be screaming sometimes. He doesn’t speak much yet (though he is coming along with his language skills), but he is constantly making noise. He is non-stop verbal output, and so much of his intent can be inferred from the inflection of these wordless soliloquies. He is full of joy most times, just bursting with it, but he has a temper and will let you know when he’s frustrated. He does a million little things that show his rock star personality. He does a little dance in his chair when he gets a bite of food he likes. He “sings” loudly into anything that is shaped like a microphone. He follows his brother around and tries to do exactly what his brother is doing, no matter what it is or how hard it is to accomplish. When he tries to potty, he will sit down on the seat and then exclaim “Oh!” and hop up to get a book, then sit back down and “read” his book, chattering happily to himself. He laughs all day long, more times than I could even count. He laughs out loud when anything pleases him, and it just fills our home with this effervescent soundtrack.
3. His hugs. Linc gives the best hugs. He hugs so hard, with all his tiny might, that he bowls over smaller kids with his hugs. While this super hug ability is terrifying to babies, it is endlessly endearing to adults. He hugs with every square inch of his frame. When Lincoln hugs you, you get a sense that even his toes are flexing. We used to call him a little koala because when you picked him up, he would mold to your body and wrap himself around you like a koala on a Eucalyptus branch. Sometimes he pats your back while he’s hugging. That move is particularly endearing to men, for some reason. They always get a kick out of the back pat.
4. He shows me a different way to look at the world. Granted this is pretty much the theme behind our blog so I’ve mentioned it countless times, but I just can’t leave it off this list. Linc has shown us a way to look at life, and at other people, that is divorced from judgment or expectation of performance. He has forced us to see people without rating their abilities and has freed us to see life without expecting a given outcome. He’s teaching us to live in the moment, to love people for who they are not what they can do, and to let go of the illusion of control over where the next few days or years will take us. He shows us that we don’t have to see the end of the path; we just have to take the step before us and face today’s challenges, one day and one step at a time. For someone who has been called a pessimist, OCD, a perfectionist and a control freak, that’s a powerful dose of freedom to get from one small child.
5. Linc completes us. When I was pregnant with Linc, the nurse at our doctor’s office was filling out paperwork and asked us about our intent to have any other children in the future, but she phrased it in what I thought was the loveliest way: “Does this baby complete your family?” At the time I said yes because Sam and I were sure we only wanted 2 kids. The truth is we don’t intend to have any other children, but even if we did, Linc has bound us together in a way that our family needed to feel complete. That’s not to say that we love Linc more or that Nico’s birth didn’t change our lives for the better. It’s just that Linc feels like the glue that holds us together somehow. The way he dotes on his brother, the way he gave us a common goal, the way his challenges have forced us to expect more of ourselves, the way his sweet, contagious spirit of joy has infused our lives with laughter. I can’t explain it exactly, but Lincoln fills a hole we didn’t even know we had in our lives, and now that we’ve had the hole filled we couldn’t imagine going back to a time before he existed. He was made for us, I believe.
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