Outrage

We were at Walmart in a neighboring town this past weekend, buying groceries and a gift for my cousin's wedding shower.

My mom was with us. One of the best things about living closer to her is being able to spend time with her outside of the babysitting drop offs/pickups.

We'd gone to different cashiers and my mom was done before me. She followed Alyssa to the room where the arcade games are kept while I finished my transaction.

While check out our groceries, our cashier looked up and exclaimed, "What happened to her hair?!"

I smiled and said, "We keep it short. She pulls at it."

She asked, "Is she autistic or something?"

I shook my head and said, "No, she's actually very social. She has a syndrome called 5p-."

The cashier wrinkled her nose and said, "What's that?"

I explained about the missing parts of the fifth chromosome and she asked, "How can she be missing part of her fifth chromosome?"

Again I shrugged and said, "It was a fluke. It happened at conception. But we got lucky. The parts she's missing just affect her physically. She's weak but all there mentally."

The woman looked at Olivia again and continued her questions, "Is it something to do with her muscles? She's got tiny hands."

I answered, "Yes, she has low muscle tone but we're working on that with gymnastics as therapy."

And with that, our transaction was complete and I headed off to find Alyssa and my mom.

I wasn't bothered by the interaction. I figure things like that are moments where I can teach people about the syndrome and perhaps give them some understanding.

But my mom...wow, she was outraged! The more she thought about it, the more furious she got. She was just so angry because, as she said, "Olivia can hear perfectly well and is taking everything in. She knows that woman was talking about her and how might that affect her?"

I said that I think that as long as I'm open and comfortable talking about Olivia's syndrome, she'll grow up knowing that while it's there, it doesn't define her.

Grammy wasn't having any of that.

At this point, she wishes she'd been in line with us so she could have told the cashier off. But I don't know how that would have helped.

I want to show Olivia off. I want the world to know how amazing she is.

Yes, her hair is the catalyst right now, because other than her hair being ultra-short, she looks typical. She looks like your average three year old who was in the cart because Mom wanted to corale her.

I understand my mom's outrage, but I don't share it. How are we ever going to educate people if they don't ask questions and if we don't answer them?