normal...

you better believe i am posting twice today...because i suck and forgot again yesterday. so my first post today is kind of a repeat of an entry i wrote last year for down syndrome awareness month...but i find myself consistently going back to it, to remind myself of what really matters...so here it is:

"sometimes i feel as though, in a desperate attempt for inclusion, in striving for not so different, i discount the very qualities that make my little one so uniquely beautiful. sometimes i feel that the celebration comes from the closer to average than the not close to average...and i have to wonder...why? why a mother who wants her children to be so beautifully, uniquely genuine would strive for average...in any sense of the word.

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in a world who claims to celebrate differences, to encourage creativity and dreams...why is it that i find myself clinging to normalcy...and who defines normal? could i even define normal? average is the middle, the sum of all parts then divided by them, the thing that happens most often...how do you quantify qualities? and why do we try? so why is it that in our quest for inclusion, in our attempts at understanding, that we compare to averages...

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i found comfort once, in averages with camden...when i would look at him and at other babies and not see so much the differences...when i would hear the words, "you can't even tell", or when the therapist would say "no significant delays"...but somewhere along the line, those words lost their meaning...they changed meaning...they began to hurt. they began pushing normal...and i find myself asking why? why can't we each just be "each"...in our very own wonderfully unique way. why can't we push for different...in the most wholesome sense of the word, and why can't that be magnificent in its very own way.

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so in a society that at times defines unique as exclusive instead of inclusive...we find ourselves comparing averages...but my son isn't average...and i wouldn't want any of my children to be. i want him to be unique in the most wonderful ways possible...my son is different, an individual, exceptional, extraordinary and strange in the best possible ways, the ways that make him divinely, singularly, him. in all, he is who he is...and i strive to celebrate that each and every day."

stay tuned later for entry two.