Discrimination

When you become the parent of a child who is "different", your mind goes places.  You wonder if you child will be accepted?  Will she have friends?  Will she be discriminated against because she is small, slow, doesn't talk?  Especially now that Aubrey is in school, I worry about these things.  I worry about discrimination.  And I have gone through it over and over in my head how I will handle it when it comes up.

This girl here....with the big blue eyes....she's my baby.  There are certain RULES that come along with being the baby.  One of those is that you must grow slow and let your momma cherish the "baby" as long as she can.

This girl....doesn't believe in that RULE (there are others she disregards too, but this is the big one).  She is a mover.  After all, she has 4 big sisters to keep up with.  She is always on the go.  During August, at 6 months old, she learned to sit up all by herself, pull up on anything and everything and was even brave enough to let go a few times.  She is disregarding rules!

The girl will stand by anything....even a moving and slippery puzzle box, which means that she had to "walk" behind it too!  She's only 8 months old!  I can't have a walker coming up yet!  Too soon!  Still my BABY!

Is it bad that I don't scold Aubrey when she pushes her sister down, preventing her from climbing and walking.  Or let Aubrey jump on her back and ride her like a horse?

I haven't encouraged my girl to be the best she can be, or to give her confidence.  I have crushed her spirit and told her she is too little to do that....I have been discriminating against her, because she is Aubrey's sister and it took Aubrey so much longer to learn these skills and I have discriminated against her because she is the baby.

I have been so focused on one daughter, that I was actually hurting the other.

Today I praised my girl for standing alone for 8 seconds.  Today I praised her for being "sooooo big".  Today I encouraged her to cruise around the coffee table. Today I tried harder not to discriminate again her for any reason.

Sometimes as parents of special needs kiddos, we get tunnel vision.  We are human.  Today, I set myself right again.