This is why...

You know how some people seem to attract good fortune or trouble or disaster? Well our family seems to attract those little moments that you just shake your head at and say "Only us!!" Sometimes it makes me wonder what's wrong with me, sometimes it makes me grit my teeth in frustration but most days it makes me shake my head and laugh!

When did we become this family? I think it was six years ago next month when I sat in the ultrasound room at the hospital as they looked at my fourth child on the monitor. I read in their faces what they were hesitant to confirm - my daughter has an extra chromosome, trisomy 21, commonly known as Down syndrome. The saving grace at that moment truly was Saving Grace. I felt completely enveloped in the pure peace and grace of God. At that moment - one of moments to come - literally from that to this it has been a roller coaster of emotions and hopes and disappointments - but thankfully that peace has always lingered somewhere in my heart to help us walk this new crazy path that God placed us on!!

Not that all our challenges and chaos happen because of Jordan - any parent can tell you that is part of the life :) But it seems to be that that moment marks a new direction in my world. No longer would there ever be any semblance or hope of being a typical family. Forever more we were on our own road - for better or for worse. It's been both but I wouldn't change a thing. Okay that's not totally true but I wouldn't get off the road!

In that moment in that room the portrait of my family shattered. The first year or two it was hard to put it back together and every so often it shatters again. But each time less drastically, less painfully. It's almost like being given a child with special needs means you get to forge a whole new way of doing things. I've never been good at doing things conventionally or "because that's the way it's done". Having a child with an extra chromosome is like a free pass to do things differently.

But this blog isn't about Jordan - well not completely - although you will probably be hearing plenty about her artistry, escapes and raids on the chocolate. It's about this amazing life I have been given to live (at least this morning as I watch the three youngest play together before Jessi heads off to school is seems amazing - there may be other words for it later!! :) It's about the dreams and the hopes and it's about the way reality plays out - from the dog that runs away as the neighborhood watches, to getting stuck in the driveway on the way to a funeral, to the bat in the house on Halloween.

They say that average blog has one follower - if you choose to be my one (or more :)) THANK YOU!!