Reflections and a Link

We are currently enjoying a cold snap up here in B.C....Not to much snow, but definitely cold! You can gauge how cold it is out by how many of your teen or preteen children actually wear a coat to school...This morning all five of my kids walked out the door with winter coats...Some even had hats and mittens on!

Yup, it's that cold!

Last weekend the kids were bored...Brad and I walked by the living room window and saw this...

Haha, the kids had pulled their skates out and were skating on a mud puddle in the driveway!

So we made them a small rink in the yard...It ended up not being to much bigger than the puddle...But Brad felt much better about them skating on a "real" rink! HA!

It doesn't take much to please our kids...

And Lord knows I love my kids best when they are OUTside!

Russell and I stay indoors...

Today I took this picture of him...I sat and looked at it for a long time.

I can't get over how beautiful he is. How proud I am of him. How grateful I am for every last tiny piece of him...Even that Extra chromosome that I cursed and wailed against in the beginning!

In quiet moments its hard not to sit and reflect back to those first dark hours after finding out Russell had Down syndrome.

It makes me sad to know that I was that sad.

And I think of all the many thoughts that went through my head...

Had I caused this? Was this my fault?

Why the hell was this even happening!

Why did I have to be that one in a thousand?

I wasn't strong enough to be the Mother of a child with Special Needs...Or maybe the truth was simply I didn't want to be a Mother of a child with Special Needs.

I was scared.

I wanted Russell to be a "mild" case...I didn't want anyone to be able to tell he had "IT"

I wanted a way out.

Russell wasn't perfect. People were sorry for us.

I was sorry for us. I was sorry for him.

Silly. Just silly. All of it.

Is this the face of a boy who needs to be pitied?

Hell No!

If only we could go back in time and tell ourselves then what we know now.

I would tell myself there would be lot's of "Extras"...But they were not going to be the Extras I was expecting.

I expected Extra heartache...Extra sadness...Extra hurt.

And there was a little Extra of all that, in the beginning. When the fear was still holding it's place deep within my heart. Yes, there were all those Extras.

But as I moved forward those Extras slipped away and were replaced.

With Extra Love and Tenderness.

Extra Strong Bonds...No one is more proud of Russell than his siblings are.

With Russell we gained Extra Happiness, Extra Joy, Extra Excitement!
Everything is a celebration!
It's almost like we never truly lived until Russell was in our lives.

And definitely Extra Cuteness!

We have Extra Special "normal" Moments.

What do I mean by that?

Normal moments are Extra Special when you never thought they would even happen.

When Russell was a couple months old I did not know what to expect. I was not sure what he was going to be like or be capable of...I didn't know if we would even have those "normal" moments.

Would he read books? Would he play cars? Would he have a favorite show?

When you are sat down and told of all the mental and physical delays your child will face it is hard to see them for who they are. You feel overwhelmed, and panic sets in...And then deep, deep, sadness as you feel you have just lost a child, not gained one.

So yes, normal, every day, ordinary moments...All of them...Are Extra Special.

We have other Extras as well...Extra appointments...Extra work...Extra concerns.

But those Extras don't outweigh, all the good ones.
They never could.

This boy is worth every. single. thing.

And the anguish I felt in those early days, even though to me it was excruciating and the worst pain imaginable...A pain I would not wish on anyone...

I would walk that path of pain and fear again a million times over to be able to be Russell's Mom.

I wanted to share a link real quick too...

A friend of mine just wrote an ebook about her journey with her little girl Addison who is turning two soon.

If there is one thing I know about Deanna it's that she writes from her heart and that's what makes her blog and her posts so very beautiful and inspiring.

This book would be great for any new Mom trying to find her way out of that initial sadness and fear from a diagnoses of Down syndrome for their child.

And even if you are not a parent of a child with Ds or even know one...This book would just be the most beautiful touching thing you have ever read. I promise!

So click

 here

And get the book!