One of the biggest surprises after raising a child with Down syndrome these last (almost) three years is how little I actually think about Down syndrome. I’ve even written about how I often forget our son has Down syndrome. We’ve been blessed in that other than a few small heart issues, Noah’s been a pretty healthy little boy.

He’s doing well in school, meeting his milestones, and dancing all around our house likes a boss! Noah’s our first child, and for the last three years has been the only child in our house (although that’s about to change) so I don’t have another child to compare him to do. So being a parent of a child with Down syndrome is the only version of parenting I know. Raising a child with Down syndrome is my normal. And it’s all good.

In my last post I mentioned how much joy it brings me to see Noah doing things that typical children do. When we first learned Noah was born with Down syndrome I remember wondering if I’d ever get a chance to play with Noah the way I thought I would before I knew he had Down syndrome…if that makes sense. In fact that was one of several fears I had about rising a child with Down syndrome…that never came true.

 **The following is a guest post from Hayley Goleniowska who blogs at Downs Side Up which has been voted the Down Syndrome blog in Europe two years in a row. Her daughter Natalia (who was born with Down Syndrome  is a clothing model and  campaigns for ad inclusion.**

I write a little blog from the UK, called Downs Side Up and the guys at Noah’s Dad have always been a great source of inspiration for me. So you can imagine how enormously honoured I was when Rick asked me to pen a guest post for him as part of Down Syndrome Awareness Month.

But what to write?

Father’s day is always a bitter sweet time for me. As I scroll through my Facebook and Twitter feed on Father’s day I see countless posts of people posting pictures of their dads with captions such as: “Thankful to have such a wonderful dad!” “Grateful for this guy’s leadership in my life!” “So glad to have such a wonderful father!” “I love this man!”

As I read these posts I always feel disappointment and sadness since I cannot post a similar post about my dad. The truth is I don’t ever remember my dad saying he loved me. Ever giving me a hug. Ever going to church with us (much less ever praying for / with me.) My dad didn’t teach me how to shave, treat a woman, how to tie a tie (or how to light a pilot light in a water heater….I just had to call the gas company to show me how to light man…I was scared. Those things look scary.) 🙂

I love my father, but the truth (sadly) is that my dad was not a good dad.

It’s been three months since we posted the video of Noah first climbing up a few stairs at home. It was super hard work for him (especially since he was 14 months old at the time!) but he kept moving forward and finally made it! Well as you can see in today’s video he’s come [Read More…]…