Yes.

It was Christmas again today!

Well...it was Christmas for Christian today. This is really born from the generosity of my wonderfully amazing, out of this world August Moms and my procrastination.

See, the August Moms generously gave Christian a gift certificate to a great website for special needs, therapy, and sensory toys called Beyond Play.

Add to that - I barely got around to using this gift until right around Christmas! To my defense, I wanted the OT to go through the catalog and let me know what the best toys would be for Christian. So I waited for her to get back to me. But that was only two weeks. The rest of the procrastination is all me.

The toys have arrived!!!

This includes a Koosh Ball, Sensory Balls, toys that light up, vibrate, sing songs, toys for grabbing, and best of all...a peanut ball! You can see a sliver of it on the right. We have to inflate it with air and then Christian can use it. I will post a picture later of Christian using the peanut to get the best idea of what exactly they're for. But they're great!

Speaking of therapy toys, I finally got around to watching the last episode of Desperate Housewives. Man, did that hit home for me. It was the story of Lynette when she fell into the "what if" her baby was born with special needs. What special need was unspecified, but I was so familiar with almost every word that was spoken in that scene. Lynette was afraid and didn't think she could "do this." "This" meaning this life with a special needs child. There was an in home therapist stretching out the crying baby and Lynette says she doesn't know if she can do this with the therapy, and the equipment... I understood every word. My position was more of the character of her husband, Tom, who says something like, "Will this work? Maybe not. But it's what we're doing right now." The writers must have consulted a parent of a special needs child for that line. I couldn't have thought it or wrote it better myself.

So Lynette goes on to dream about this potential child. She dreams about this child in adolescents and then graduating college. Lynette wakes up inspired and proud of her potential child she saw in the dream. However, she wakes up to find out that, sadly, the baby didn't make it. And she's devastated.

This scene made me think about when I was pregnant with Christian. This isn't meant to be controversial and I'm not trying to make any kind of statement but I refused additional testing and screening during my pregnancy for things like Downs Syndrome and Trisomies, other than routine, because I knew in my heart that I was willing to accept whatever God would give me. I'm not against that testing. In fact, I think I got some of the testing with Lola anyway, just to be prepared.

That being said, I asked myself the hard question: If I had known Christian would be born with a brain injury or something similar, would I feel the same way?

Yes.

I answered it so quickly in my head without hesitation. This might be because I already know and love him and so I couldn't say anything otherwise. And this is very bias because I wasn't in that situation so I can only speculate. But, honestly, 100 times over...yes. This is what God has given us and I accept it. I accept him. And I would be devastated if I were to wake up, like Lynette's character, and it was all over.