The Many Faces of Ollie

(he's covered in his mid-afternoon snack.....strawberries and dirt...mmmm mmmm good.)

Dear Anna,

While I write this, I'm watching the beautiful five-year-old-you doing your favorite thing, creating a world on paper with crayons, pencils and lots of imagination. Your eyelashes are just as breathtaking as they were on the day your were born, your skin is still deliciously deep and smooth (you have your dad to thank for that!) and your spirit is as gentle and sweet as when I held you after your first bath. As I watch the huge curls fall onto your face, I hope that they will be your friends as you grow and that you won't smooth them into submission with a flat iron (but if you have to go through such a phase, I will try to wait patiently for it to end...). It's hard to believe, as I watch you skip, jump and twirl around the room, that at one point I truly wondered if you would ever walk. I spent so many hours worrying about your immobility, when I should have just enjoyed the fact that you weren't climbing on the kitchen table, emptying every cabinet and rolling the toilet paper into the living room (not that I have any experience with that now....;)). Oh, and then there are all the other things I worried about....the syndromes, conditions and disorders I was sure you had....until I finally accepted your true diagnosis. You show all the signs and symptoms of being a unique child of God....more specifically, you have Annabelle Rose Zedler syndrome....no one else will ever share this condition and no other mommy has the privilege of having a child with ARZ. I hope that as you grow, you will hold onto all of the things that make you so special. Your ability to get lost in dance....to draw for hours...to believe that ordinary girls and boys are royalty....to make up words....to snuggle with sheep...to bring out the best in people...
I know that the world is a big place with lots of people who want you to become like them. Hopefully, you'll discover what I have, that each person is their own syndrome and no one can pretend to be afflicted with another's syndrome without being found out in the end. So, here's to embracing the true "you"...the you whom I have loved from the moment I saw two lines on the little plastic stick. As I look at your long-limbed-five-year-old-self, I'm saying a prayer for both of us, that we will continue to love this precious child of God, and when the world sees an ordinary girl, we'll recognize your royalty, a beautiful, bouncy-haired princess.

"The Verster"

Froggy