Okay, I"ll be the first to post here and start the ball rolling. One of the weird, but not totally unexpected things that happend on the ABC news comments section after the Nightline segment was aired, was that someone said something nasty along the lines of "3 autistic children enough for you? Stop having kids!" I was frankly outraged, but of course this person doesn't know us nor do they know our entire story so oh well. But as I said on my blog,
www.kristisakai.net (which Eric Blackwell made for me--thank you, Eric!) it also sort of brought out my sick sense of humor.
Do any of you remember the movie Parenthood from about...1989? It starred Steve Martin, among others. Steve Martin is a dad of a son who is apparently neurologically different. He's absolutely adorable, of course, but the poor little guy is incredibly anxious, he cries, the school wants to send him off to a school, "For children with emotional problems." (outrageous of course). It's a comedy though, I swear. Then his wife finds out she is unexpectedly pregnant with their FOURTH child. He was stunned, then flipped. "OH GREAT! Let's just have FIVE! Let's have SIX! Let's have a dozen and call them donuts!" Ultimately he comes to realize that life is a roller coaster and it's better than a merry-go-round, an analogy given by his grandma. His wife says, "I think your grandmother is very wise!" To which he replies, "OH yeah, then why is she sitting in the neighbor's car?"
Anyway, in response to the comment that I should not have more children (I'm not going to by the way, not that it matters) I wanted to reply that I full intend to have 9 more because I love donuts. The thing is, do we really want plain donuts? Do we want boring ole dry plain donuts with no filling and no sprinkles? Okay, maybe some people do, but I don't. If I'm going to go to all the trouble of having donuts in the first place, I want them to be worth my while. I want to bite into something interesting. It's the same with our kids. Plain is boring. And anyway, when something is wonderful, who can possibly stop at one? These kids are challenging, but they are also delightful! They are precious! They need a lot, but what they ultimately give back is much greater than we give them. They need us, they require us to think beyond ourselves and to think about the challenges that everyone faces.
Okay, so maybe I don't want to have a dozen, I'm sort of "full" on 3. But I'll borrow the Blackwell kids on loan once in awhile, that would make 7 and if anyone else has a few spares I'll love them too. In fact, I know I can't stop at a dozen...or even a gross. I love these kids, mine and yours.
kristi
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