Perfect

On one of the groups I'm a part of, a mom asked when we knew that our children would have special needs, and one of the responses from another mom was that her child was perfect until the day she was born. I know this mother loves her daughter greatly...but that struck a chord with me.

At our worst with Acorn, during the one point in his life that there really was fear that he would not survive, I asked a good friend what we would do if the doctors couldn't "fix" him. The friend told me that I shouldn't think in terms of Acorn being broken - sure, not everything was quite up to spec, but if I started thinking that way, I wouldn't be able to celebrate his successes.

And that's true. Over time, I've come to see both Acorn and Leaf as perfect - just like every other child is perfect, no matter what challenges they face. There may be parts of them that don't work the same as most people.....but all of us have things that make us unique.

Even so, we're still perfect. They're still perfect. Their special needs and disabilities don't take away from that perfection.