What is Normal?

I admit that there are moments when doubt and fear creep into my  head and heart about my daughter’s future.

Will she be normal?

Ryan is the only one in the world with her particular chromosomal abnormality. Apparently, I have bad genes. Great.

She is almost ten and can’t talk. Years and years of speech therapy, but still no ability to form a sentence. She can utter few words. She can use a few signs.

As a family we function very well. We guess and decipher and encourage and learn and endure some melt downs as her world and her thoughts expand. But every once in a while I am able to step outside myself and feel how abnormal my normal is.

Sure, she went to four years of kindergarten. Not normal, but absolutely the right thing for her.

No, she is not in Special Education. She obviously qualifies, but my hubby and I don’t believe the system would invest in her; it would merely endure her.

All this is not normal. We are not a part of the typical crowd, we are not a part of the special ed crowd. We don’t fit in.

But, save a few moments filled with ridiculous and useless panic, we enjoy the journey…

Years ago my family began a tradition of going to Disneyland for Halloween.

In my opinion, the Christian Community–of which I am a proud and vocal member–is nutty about Halloween. The whole gather on the 31st of October, in costume, to collect candy, and call it any other name you want and declare you don’t celebrate Halloween is just not for me. And, truthfully, the small town I grew up in had many streets with no lights and obnoxious teenagers that would drive around and smash pumpkins all evening, so my initial thoughts about traditional Halloween are not fabulous. I wanted/needed/searched for a better third option, and Disney was it.

This year, unbeknownst to me, my hubby planned an entire trip to Disneyworld.

Two weeks.

Five different resorts.

Unbelievable.

We packed up and moved our tradition to Florida.

As is the normal routine, one of our first stops the evening we arrive is Downtown Disney to choose a costume. My teen was willing to dress up, but there really was not a great costume for her. (Note to self, a bit of planning and preparation would have been helpful.) Most of the searching was done by my peanut.

I lobbied heavily for this:

But as precious as she was in that costume, and as much as she loved it, when we got into the dressing room she looked at me pleadingly, made her hand into a fist and tapped the wood bench with, “Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock…” which is her way of asking for FROZEN. (Cue the sound track: “Elsa? Do you want to build a snowman?”)

So my daughter, with unlimited options before her, wanted to be a princess from FROZEN for Halloween this year.

It doesn’t get any more “normal” than that.