Side note

Normally, I try to keep this blog all about Ellie because, well, quite frankly, she's the most important person in the world to me. Her health and well-being are paramount. I spend every waking minute of my life (and hers) with her. But I have to digress a bit because I find myself unable to forget a conversation I had with my brother.

A slight prologue- I love my brother. He's a great guy. He's smart, he's very, very funny and witty. He is mature and responsible. He's a great dad. He married an awesome lady. He trusted me enough to let me babysit my niece all the time for 6 months. I trust him enough that he and his wife are in charge of Ellie if anything happens to my husband and I. All that love and adoration aside, he can be a real... we'll go with jerk.

The other day he was concerned about the upcoming arrival of his son/my nephew. He asked if I was going to have another child, and I said no. (Of course to be fair I never said I was going to have any) and he said he was worried about having 2 young kids. I tried to assure him that it would fine, he will have no issues since they are relatively far apart in age (just under 2 years apart), etc. His response was "HA! You just said you wouldn't have any more and you're trying to convince me having more is ok!" Well, yes, I was. For a few reasons.

First, as the older sister and a friend, it's my job to reassure my friends and family that everything will be ok. That's just being a nice, supportive person. Second, our first born children couldn't be more different. I didn't want to point that out to him because I work so hard every day to remind myself, and everyone around me, that Ellie is a "normal" baby. That "special needs" is just a stupid label she'll probably be able to leave behind in a year or so. That she's even advanced in some ways. If he had a baby in NICU for a few days, if he had a baby that had to wear an apnea monitor, if he had a baby that had an entire special team assigned to her at the local children's hospital, if his baby had an entire team assigned to her by the state government, maybe if his daughter had a massive surgery with horrific looking recovery, if his baby was threatened with an ng tube, or had to have formula recipes approved by a feeding and nutrition team and a GI doctor, then we could compare parental skills. And, on the other side of the coin, maybe if I had a near-perfect pregnancy, a great vaginal birth resulting in a perfectly healthy baby that could breastfeed exclusively for months on end, maybe I'd be more inclined to do it again.

But I said nothing other than, "you'll be fine." I guess I just don't want to have keep pointing out how different Ellie is when all I want is for her to be is, well, the same.