Ordinary

I like being ordinary. I like having an ordinary family, living in an ordinary house, working an ordinary job and even driving an ordinary car.

I like doing ordinary things like planting lilac trees and taking my kids to the park.

I love watching my children do ordinar things like chase each other around the house, laughing and screaming.

But then the laughs turn to cries and I run to comfort Olivia, who has fallen because she's forgotten to watch out for something on the floor and didn't pick her feet up high enough, and I'm reminded that we're not exactly ordinary. Not really.

She can't quite do everything that kids her age do. She can't run quite as fast, she can't climb stairs quite as well. But she amazes me every single day with everything that she does do. She amazes me with everything she tries to do.

See...I'm an ordinary person who was given an extraordinary gift. When my second child was born and I realized that she was going to need extra help in this world, I was jolted out of my ordinary little world.

I was given a child who needed me a little more than her sister had. At four years old, Olivia still needs help at the park. She needs me to be there to give her a boost up the ladder, she wants me to catch her when she comes down the slide.

And that's okay, because it's not in me to be one of the moms sitting on the benches off to the side. I didn't do that with Alyssa, and she didn't need me at all after she turned two. I was still there there beneath the climbing wall, just in case she needed me.

But even as I watch my two girls, so different in some fundamental ways but so similar in other ways, I realize that they are both so much more than the sum of their chromosomes.

Where Olivia is defied all the odds by even being able to climb the stairs at four years old, Alyssa's physical coordination astounds me. As she effortlessly climbs a tree and then fearlessly jumps back to the ground, all the while shouting, "Mommy! Look at me!" I'm amazed by her.

When they stand side by side, both with skinned knees (because they're both over-confident in what they can do) I realize that in the end, they're more alike than different.

And they're both extraordinary, just because they're here and they're mine. And so I'll continue to count my blessing and marvel at the wonder of them even in the midst of the ordinariness of our days.