Bloom in season

Then and now...Marianna learned to walk on the summer of her second birthday. We were spending a lot of time at Crescent beach and she finally got tired of crawling around scratching her knees on the sand. I'll never forget the day she took those long awaited first steps. Her older brother did everything early and, for a while, I had the joy of being the mom whose kid did everything first. Waiting for Marianna to meet a milestone humbled me as a parent. She has taught me to question our culture's emphasis on achieving and over achieving. While we need markers to assess development, we do a lot of harm to our children when we compare them to others or to expectations set by our society. Perhaps, at the heart of the matter is the belief that our children are a reflection of us. If they succeed, we look good, and if they don't, we somehow failed. The wise Solomon said "I saw that all labor and all achievement spring from man's envy of his neighbor. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind" Ecclesiastes 4:4. If we love our children as God loves us -- unconditionally, not based on our performance -- then we will give them the freedom to bloom in God's way and in God's timing. #downsyndromeawareness #ableism #parenting #loveunconditional

Then...

And Now