firsts

This morning as I was dressing Moriah I realized we've had a lot of "firsts" in the last week.

Yesterday, the first time Moriah has ever peed in her bathwater. I laughed.

This week, the first time Moriah has worn clothing in size 3-6 months.

Last Wednesday, the first time we have had an adult with Down syndrome in our home. Thank you to our friend, Brian, for bringing his friend to meet us. We so enjoyed the man's company and were touched by his words of encouragement to our family and his inspiring life of faith.

On Sunday, the first time I have met with a group of mothers who have children with Down syndrome. They invited me out to a "mom's night out" at a nearby Mexican restaurant, and we stayed until the restaurant kicked us all out. I heard some stories that were difficult to hear, but mostly I witnessed a lot of gratitude, a wicked (and sometimes laughably dark) sense of humor, and a unspoken belief that normal, everyday moms can be moms of special needs kids. That we are no angels, just moms working out love in our lives and in the lives of our children.

And a difficult "first." Yesterday, the first time a stranger has acknowledged that Moriah has Down syndrome. I should have seen it coming. At the mom's night out on Sunday, one of the moms got to laughing about how when her child was a baby, she thought others couldn't tell he had Down syndrome, but now, when she looks back at his photos from that time, she sees how obvious it was. I was taken aback by her story, because, frankly, sometimes I don't see Down syndrome in Moriah, and wonder whether others can "tell" or not. I wonder almost every time we are out in public. Maybe this is part of the "coming to terms" with the diagnosis, I don't know. But sure enough, yesterday we were at the grocery store and a middle aged woman rushes up to me in the cookie aisle (I was hunting for vanilla wafers, which are a craving I haven't shaken since the last months of my pregnancy). She must have seen us in an earlier aisle, but I didn't remember her and at first was a bit sketched out at her close proximity to Moriah and me. "She is beautiful," the woman said. So many people tell me that (and always, I wonder--are they saying it because she is beautiful and looks "typical" and beautiful, because she is beautiful as a child with Down syndrome, or because they suddenly realize Moriah has Down syndrome but figure they better say something nice anyway?), and I offered my usual, "Thank you so much. We think so." Suddenly, she leans over, kisses Moriah's foot, makes the sign of the cross, mumbles what I hope was a blessing in Russian, puts her hand on my arm, looks into my eyes and says, "I used to work with children like her. She is a special gift. May God bless you." Of course, I handled it in stride, smiling in a grateful-sort-of-way and offering again my thanks and returning her blessing. But let me tell you, I took my cart and those vanilla wafers, walked to the next aisle, and thought, "I could really cry right now." I didn't, but I really could have, and was relieved to be checking out a few minutes later with the woman nowhere in sight. But then, the woman checking me out kept looking at Moriah, began to say something, and then said nothing, and I realized again that people can tell, that Moriah really is a child with Down syndrome and it's no secret.

As I was pushing the cart out of the store, Moriah asleep in her baby seat, I was still dealing with some sort of shock. Shock that I thought otherwise, that people couldn't see what was so obvious. At the same time, shock that it was, after all, so obvious. Who would Moriah be, I wondered? Moriah, or always, the baby or girl or woman with Down syndrome?

And because my life has been full of ironies in the last couple months--some painful, and others so nearly miraculous that they make me laugh--as I was leaving the grocery store, a mother and her daughter were walking in. They were talking and laughing as they made their way inside, the mom's hand on her teenage daughter's back. As the teenage girl pulled off her hat and looked up at me just as I got to the exit, I realized with a sudden start that she had Down syndrome. I waited until I was outside, near the Salvation Army bell-ringer, and laughed out loud. Sometimes, just when I begin to worry that maybe my daughter is going to be alone in the world, feeling isolated and like she is the only one...sometimes, when I'm in public and see typical baby-toddler-kids with typical moms (and oh, how the moms with crowds of non-special needs kids gathered around them give me pause sometimes, so unaware that to me they are shining with lucky fate, to birth so many with so much health) and begin to feel that I am alone, singled out (by something random or divinely appointed I feel I will never be sure)...sometimes, I am offered a reminder that we are not alone, Moriah and me. That we can aspire to be a child with special needs and her mom, walking into a grocery store on a chilly day, pulling off our hats and sharing an inside joke together. No less and no more meaningful than any other child and her mother, but somehow, more hard-won.