All I Want for Christmas

As I’ve been pondering this holiday season and what it all really means, I hear some of the old time favorites recited, like “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth” or “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas”, and I think about what it all means to me. Christmas was never a big deal in my family when I was growing up, and many of the traditions, hopes, and beliefs associated with this time of year are sometimes lost on me. I started thinking about what would be the one big wish I’d like to see come true for Christmas, and that would be to see my almost three-and-a-half year old son walk on his own for the first time.

I understand that most parents don’t have to hope or wish for something like this to come true for their child(ren); it just happens, and usually around the time that it typically happens for most children. But when you have a child with numerous health concerns and delays, EVERYTHING moves to the category of stuff you just don’t take for granted. I see mothers of typical children commenting their woes online around this time of year about how their precious little baby just wouldn’t cooperate when it came time to sit on Santa’s lap, sometimes even accompanying their comment is a sobbing emoji, and I can’t help but think, “REALLY?! This is what parents of typical kids get worked up about??” I try to imagine what it would be like if these things that seem so trivial to our family were really our main concerns about our son, instead of his inability to walk, talk, or feed himself at this point of his life. I can’t help but have feelings of anger and bitterness well up inside when I think about it all too much. Your point of view and the way you expect things to go certainly have to change when you are faced with raising a non-neurotypical child, and oh how it hurts sometimes!

(Featured image from Indyschild.com.)