I almost can’t talk about Liam — at church, anyway — without having someone try to soothe my feelings. (No matter how happy I am.)
About 3 weeks ago he developed stranger anxiety. Although not all babies ever start freaking when a stranger is near (or picks them up), it’s a sign that they are drawing distinctions, so it’s a developmental milestone. The next week I bragged on him at church to Mrs. X. She reassured me that it was a good thing!
Well, yes.
Or, there’s Mrs. Y. She told me that before long Liam would be doing some other developmental thing.
I said, “I don’t think he will.” (It was something that doesn’t fit his personality. I don’t remember what.)
She said, brightly, “Well then he won’t!”
I knew exactly what she meant: that I should take comfort about that he would do this thing; or if I wouldn’t take that, I should take comfort that it was OK that he wouldn’t.
Then there’s Miss Z, who apologized for saying Liam might be normal in some developmental way, because that implied he might not be completely normal, and who are we to say what is normal, and maybe him having Down syndrome was no worse than our usual little foibles or petty neuroses, and –
I’ll be kind and assume this is all well meant — and point out that it’s just not helpful. If you feel the need to comfort someone, you might first check whether that someone looks distraught. And even if he does…
Let him have his sadness. Even if he didn’t need to feel it — and I sure did, those first few weeks of knowing about Liam’s Down syndrome — you couldn’t stop him. If you don’t need to be
We took Liam to First Fridays, a display of local art talent (complete with punch and snacks, of course). I expected him to show no interest.
I was really surprised at his reliable reaction in one gallery, full of colorful expressionist urban landscapes and abstract paintings. I’d put him up to one of those huge paintings, and he would laugh and flap his arms in a caper. He was excited.
Good times could make boring reading . . . but maybe not boring pictures?
But much as I wish he could find more joy in the world right now (so the rest of us can too), let’s think about it developmentally. He became more dissatisfied with the world after he became a lot more aware of it around mid-December, more alert, more energetic and involved. I’m glad he’s more involved! The flip side of his screaming is his smiling — which he did in church on December 14, dispelling our growing worries that he was hitting his first delay, and making me get teary-eyed. We love his smiles!
We love how much more attention he’s paying to the world — staring at me incessantly (which feeds my ego no end), laughing when Marisa sings the ABC song to him, watching us from across the room, talking and cooing . . . it’s all so normal, so delightful, so much what we needed to see so we could stop worrying about Down’s-related delays for a while!
, but seriously, I can’t put forth a belief that a sexless life is not worth living. Marrin isn’t embarrassed to put it front and center in her argument. (She does not mention marriage.)
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