Trade

I'm a big believer in support groups. I think it's great to be able to collaborate with people who are in the same boat you are in, for whatever reason. With all this technology and online stuff, that's easier than ever.
I belonged to an adoption support group when we were paper chasing for the Princess. I've belonged to countless other support groups since. One for working Moms, one for families with children from China, etc. When we adopted the Pope, and discovered his issues were going to be more than just his vision loss, I joined a group of moms who have children with global developmental delays. It's been wonderful. So much insight and support from other moms who are dealing with the same types of issues with their child that we are dealing with for Pope. It's a great online community. We laugh together and we cry together. We support one another.

Recently one of the moms posted about her son. He's got a severe language delay (4 years old and still not speaking) and some issues with hypotonia, but she posted, "Would anyone like to trade a gross motor delay for a speech delay? I just don't think I can handle Mark* climbing on anything else!"
*Not the child's real name.

Here post got me to thinking, what would I "trade-in" for the Pope? This was a great reflection for me because it go me to really focus on all of the things the Pope does really well. We'd love for Pope to be able to talk... to really have a conversation, rather than just "Eat!" or "Ernie!" or "Go!" but I'm not sure I'd want to give-up Pope's ability to walk (or these days run!) I wouldn't want to deny his ability to manipulate tiny objects in his hand or discern his favorite toys from the pile. We'd love Pope to be more social, but I'd only want it without sacrificing all of the things he "can" do. I suppose it's good that we'll never be able to trade, I'd never be able to make that sort of a decision.