When Jacob was born, part of me wanted to delete all of my social media accounts instantly. I didn't want to explain things to everyone. None of whom I expected to know how I felt. I didn't want to answer questions about why I hadn't posted pictures of Jacob and Molly together. I didn't want to see anyone's new baby and continually see how different my experience was. I wanted to talk to my immediate circle of family and friends and that was it. I wanted my family private. (Funny how I write this on a public blog, huh?)
I'm so glad I didn't ever hit delete. I took a long break, which I needed, but eventually it was really nice to return to Facebook and see the overwhelming support we had. Plus, it was the main way for me to connect to other families who knew exactly what I was experiencing.Since then, I have also met many of these families in person and gotten to know their beautiful children, both with 46 and 47 chromosomes.
It's still hard to get online and not compare kids. I read this blog post awhile ago, and although it's about dads, a few really hit home. Especially #7, which brings me to the second topic I've been wanting to write about - how we talk about kids.
There always seems to be expectation in people's voices when they ask about your kids. This is something I never understood before Jacob was born and I don't think I ever would have if I didn't have him. I've had that awkward silence when a friend says, "So, he's sitting up/crawling/all over the place/ babbling/etc by now, right?"
I know, I know, you are all thinking, 'no one means any harm by this.' True, but that doesn't mean it doesn't put me in a weird spot and make me a little sad when I say that he is 13 months, commando crawls around and is still working on sitting up independently.
Jacob has taught me SO MANY lessons, but one major one is to forget all expectations. Let's all accept differences a little more and forget our expectations. Jacob was probably 6 months old when a friend came over to visit. She joyfully asked me, "What's Jacob up to lately?" It made me so happy to be able to brag instead of correct what someone else may think he was doing.
On that note - let me brag. We have been working constantly to learn sign language, as a family. Molly is the resident pro over here. Jacob just recently began signing "more" when he runs out of Cheerios and it makes me smile so big every time.
