Why Not

By Melissa on July 8, 2011 in Down syndrome

My uncle paid me the best compliment the other day. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even realize he did it, but I’m going to take it anyways!

He said that he had been questioning whether or not to invite us to watch the fireworks with his family, and he finally came to the conclusion to ask because we’re not “afraid” to do things with Rowenna.

That really struck me as being a great thing to say about my family. I have never looked at my life with that lens before, but Hubby and I are definitely from the school of “Why not?” and it serves us well. Get married while still in college? Why not? Rescue a cat from a shelter that is chronically ill? Why not? Buy a house that is 106 years old, full of “handy man” plumbing and “creative” wiring? Sure, why not?

That’s not to say we don’t think long and hard about our choices! But after a discussion, we often come down to the Why Not of it all. We’ve yet to make a truly horrible, irreversible decision. In fact, most of the decisions we’ve made with that Why Not attitude have come to be the smartest, most fulfilling decisions we’ve made as a couple. Our chronically ill cat is also the sweetest cat alive, as evidenced in prior posts. Our house has its quirks, and even though I have threatened to set a lit match to it while a fountain of toilet water flowed from my dining room ceiling, it has been a wonderful home for my family.

And now that I’ve had a chance to sit back and think about the last year, it is clear to me that we have applied the Why Not principle to pretty much everything we’ve done with Rowenna so far. We have had some seriously fun experiences because of it. We’ve gone camping and drove to Florida. She’s been to the zoo, to the beach, across the country. We’ve been to a sheep and wool festival, a dairy breakfast, sampled food at the State Fair, and picked our own pumpkins for Halloween. We cloth diaper, I still pump, we cook the majority of our food from scratch, we garden. We get flak for our choices sometimes, but to all of it we say: why not? I’ve been told we do too much or drive too far. But truly, why not?

Never in a million years did I ever think I would ever say this, but I find it to be true:

Having a child with Down syndrome is hands down the most liberating experience of my life so far. It has totally amplified our sense of Why Not.

There’s something about shaking off the “shoulds” of parenting that is intensely liberating.

I’m hoping that the Why Not will be an asset as Rowenna grows and we look for opportunities for her.

Anyways, there’s my thought for the week. To conclude, here are three absolutely beautiful shots taken during Rowenna’s official one year photo shoot. Our photographer, Jodi Gilmour, absolutely captured the spirit of my wonderful girl and even caught a candid shot of my family which I think truly represents who we are.