French Toast for lunch

Raising a child with special needs can be a roller coaster of emotion. Let me correct that...Raising a child with special needs can cause me to have roller coaster of emotions towards other people. I feel like i live in a blissful world,we eat breakfast together at the table, and i drink coffee every morning from my "Rock star" mug.

We do things like eat french toast dripping with syrup for lunch, and play for hours on fluffy blankets spread all over the floor. Down syndrome doesn't usually dominate or even temporarily rule our gingerbread living. To us it is a fact of life, Rozie has Down syndrome and she has blue eyes, but every once in awhile i get a comment that knocks me on my tush. When i am out in public i speak of Rozie's diagnosis comfortably and freely, her diagnosis is part of who she is, and it isn't part of who she is.

I was at a ladies night and i was speaking to some expecting women and one was asking me a lot about my pregnancy with Rozie. You know the typical questions " Did you know ahead of time?" no. "Was there signs that you saw during an ultra sound" yes but those signs can also mean nothing, so we disregarded them. " How old are you?" 36 , but those statistic are inaccurate i know many women have had a child with Down syndrome and were in their 20s and even a first child. Once i said that it set her off, she started holding her belly in fear saying that she didn't want to talk about it anymore , G-d forbid it was to happen to her, and she walked away with terror in her eyes. I stood there with tears in my eyes.

My Rozie, my baby , my love, my pride, my gift from Hashem, my Bracha, my beauty, my little girl, my child, my joy, my EVERYTHING, is something to cause another woman to hold her belly in fear and pray it does not happen to her. Times like this make me want to crawl back into my house and go back to my perfect little life, with french toast and rock star mugs, but as we all know that is impossible, so i thought about this and here is what i have to say......
1. Down syndrome IS beautiful, beauty comes in all shapes and sizes
2. Having a child who learns differently is not the end of the world, it is just different
3. Having a child with Down syndrome is hard because of the opinion of the rest of the world, not because of the child herself
4. Having a child with Down syndrome is a blessing, it really is.
5. Having a child with Down syndrome will change your outlook on the whole world, and you will wonder how you were doing it before with out this special soul.
6. Lastly if i haven't convinced you and this is still a fear, than please, never ever ever express that to a parent of a special needs child. To say things like thank G-d my child does not have Down syndrome, or I'm so worried i'll have a baby like yours, is hurtful and cruel, even if you really feel that way. My child is a blessing and THANK G-D I HAVE BEEN GIVEN THIS BRACHA IN MY LIFE. This is not a G-d forbid this is a Baruch Hashem.