One Year

Jonathan is going to be one year old on Friday.

We were talking today about the past year and reading over the posts from Jonathan's first few weeks and it's strange how much we didn't know back then.

We didn't know that everything with Jonathan would take three times longer than anyone expected.

We didn't know that he couldn't see hardly a thing for his first six months of life.

We didn't know what he really looked like when he smiled.

We didn't know it wouldn't be a year spent in the hospital - and after he had RSV, we didn't know that every other cold he had would be just a little bump in the road.

We didn't know if his heart was going to heal up or if he'd need surgery.

We didn't know what it would be like taking care of an ostomy...and then getting rid of it.

We didn't know his hair wouldn't fall out and he'd have to have three haircuts in his first year of life.

We didn't know he would be the most peaceful baby we'd ever had.

We didn't know he wouldn't fuss and cry unless he was scared.

We didn't know he would be like a cuddly newborn for six months.

We didn't know he had a tongue that could touch his collarbone.

We didn't know if he would ever nurse normally or if he'd be on bottles until he could eat.

We didn't know he had a fascination with hands and fingers.

We didn't know his favorite song would turn out to be "Clap Your Hands, All Ye People!"

We didn't know he could spend hours watching someone play violin.

We didn't know he'd make it to his first birthday still weighing only 16 pounds.

We didn't know he'd learn to climb down from the couch before he could sit up.

Whenever a baby is born, you really have no idea what kind of person they're actually going to be. You know certain things about them - some are mad, some are peaceful, some are wiggly, some are sleepy - but their personhood could be anything. When a baby is born, you look at them and think they could become the next Mozart or be able to build beautiful furniture or have fifteen children someday or run a mile faster than anyone else. They could be the most stubborn person ever born in this family or they could be the most biddable.

Jonathan still has that feeling to him. His personality is clearer, but there's still the endless options that might form his person. He could be a musical genuis, for all we know. He might be a born engineer like Michael. He could read by the time he's four. He might get married or he might not. He might say pizza is his favorite food and despise apple pie. He might be short or tall, fat or thin, have a nice singing voice or not. All of that kind of stuff is still unkown.

Certain things are obvious - he's going to crawl later than anyone else and he's working on getting teeth later too. He worries if people roughhouse too much and yells at us to stop it. He is more observant of whether or not people are happy or sad than any other kid his age I've known. He has seemingly endless patience about most things. He thinks it's fun to pull grass and take his socks off. As far as he's concerned, his feet are a slightly less mobile pair of hands and everything ought to be felt with them.

He is an unbelievably sweet little kid. I really don't like when people nod knowingly and say, "Well, those kind of people ARE sweet", though. Jonathan isn't "those kind of people". Jonathan is Jonathan...but yet he fits the mold everyone knows and it's easy to box him in. He IS a Down's baby. He's sweet and patient and slow...and he sticks that darn tongue out all the time. That, by the way, is going to stop. Just as soon as we can make him understand to put it back in.

I wasn't sure what it was going to be like taking him places, if people would look at him and say, "Oh, there's a kid with problems" or if people would respond just like they did with the other babies. I still feel very protective or defensive toward him when people come up to look at him - I don't want him to be seen as lacking anything. So many parents abort their babies after they find out they might have Down's that I know people have a dread or disgust of their child being like Jonathan. And yet, people either don't know or are too polite to comment: every time we go somewhere, people come up to admire him. I'm sure his smile helps - everyone is charmed by a baby who smiles at them like they're the most important person on earth. But more than that, he's cute. And sweet.

We've sung Happy Birthday to him for two weeks so that he would appreciate it on his birthday. At first he cried when everyone sang his name at once, but now he smiles and claps his hands. That's his sweetest gesture right now: whenever he's happy, he grins so wide his eyes practically disappear and claps his hands. He learned to do that overnight two weeks ago and now he does it constantly. We've been trying to get him to wave for months and he still won't do it, but clapping his hands...it took a few hours to get that idea. So now he claps and "sings" when we sing "Clap Your Hands, All Ye People!" and claps everyone else's hands if he can manage to grab their fingers.

He began trying to move around on the floor this week using the same scrunching movement he uses to get down off the couch instead of just rolling; and yesterday we put him in his little jumper chair and he immediately started jumping up and down like he's been practicing for weeks. We've had him in that thing since he was eight months old and he never seemed like he got the point...and then suddenly it clicked and he babbled excitedly for about an hour, jumping around like it was the best thing he'd ever done. I have videos - it's too bad I can't post those!

I don't think he'll be eating cake on his first birthday, but he's eating lots of food now and is starting to ask for it at every meal. He doesn't do well with rice, but barley cereal in applesauce and mashed bananas is his favorite food. He just eats all the other stuff we feed him, but he enjoys the applesauce. He began eating Cheerios this week, although the task of picking them up is still a puzzle for him. He keeps trying to pick them up in his fist and then pry them out with his other hand - picking something up between two fingers is still an unknown skill. But to be honest, we've never given him anything little for fear he might try to eat it, so he's never had a chance to practice picking up small things. We'll keep giving him Cheerios and I figure he'll get the idea after a bit. One thing has become clear about Jonathan: it might take him a while, but he's learning everything he needs. I expect that to keep going, too. And out of those endless possibilities for who he might be, I'm confident it's a useful someone we're all going to continue to enjoy living with.

If the first year is any indication, living with Jonathan is a great prospect.