Here We Go Again

I love blank books.  Sketch books, journals, even paper calendars.  And I’ve got quite a collection of them, each started with a few pages, and then abandoned.

Confession:  I am the same way with blogs.  I’m not going to tell you how many blogs I’ve started and abandoned around the internets.

Over a year since my last post, I’ve been feeling the bloggy-bug again.  I’ve got stuff in my head, and I want to write it down.  And because I’ve started a new chapter of life, I really considered starting up another new blog.  I could have a new title and make a new header and focus the content on the things I want to write about right now.

Three months ago we welcomed our second son into the world.  This is Max.

Max has Down Syndrome.  Hearing those words changed everything and changed nothing.  There was a rush of emotions in those first days, of course.  And all the questions and worries were quickly eclipsed by the love for and from our tiny little boy.  And now, as we’re moving from the sleepless newborn days into a new-normal of life with two little boys, I’m feeling together enough to try to get some things out of my head and into words.

The strange thing is, even though I am now officially a Special Needs Parent, I’m still awfully new to it.  Aside from the first few weeks in the NICU and the therapist who stops by every other week, Max’s babyhood looks pretty much like Toby’s.  So much of my reaction, so much of what I want to write down, is the terribly naïve ramblings of my hopes and fears for the future.

I’m fairly certain that I will look back over these words in a few years and laugh at myself.  I’ll laugh at my fears for things that turned out just fine, and I’ll laugh at my certainty about things that I was oh-so-wrong about.  But I want to write it all down anyways.

There’s a lot I don’t know about Down Syndrome yet.  There’s even more I don’t yet know about Max.  And everything I am learning about this journey is encased in the larger story that includes Toby and Christer, my own strengths and insecurities, my faith, my own enjoyment of hearing myself type as I sort it all out.

So I’m not starting a new blog, I’m jumping back into this old one.  And for a while I’ll probably be writing a lot about our new little bundle and all the things he makes me think about.  But there will also be posts about our outings, my craftings, and, of course, all of the things that my older son makes me think about as well.

Because as much as new chapters feel like beginnings, no story really starts on a blank page.