Mommy, that girl looks like my brother, Lukie Dukie

It happened.  Last night, Matthew recognized that his brother looked “different”.   

Over the last few years I’ve become friends with dozens of others mothers across the country to children with Down syndrome (Ds)on Facebook.  I’ve also “liked” and “joined” dozens of pages and groups specific to Ds.  These resources have been invaluable to me as I’ve tackled the learning curve associated with becoming the mother to a child with special needs and an enormous side benefit has been the presence of their beautiful children in my newsfeed every day.  I’ve literally watched them grow, take their first steps, communicate via sign, etc. I know about them as individuals and I’ve enjoyed them immensely!   

Last night Matthew was sitting in my lap as I was scanning my newsfeed while we were watching TV and out of the blue he pointed to the photo of a little girl about Luke’s age with Ds on my phone and said “she looks like my brother”.  I was caught off guard and asked him to repeat what he’d said like I hadn’t heard him the first time… more definitively he told me “mommy, that girl looks like my brother, Lukie Dukie”.  I tried to probe him, to see what he’d identified as looking the same to which he responded, “I don’t know”.  I never was able to get him to tell me how they looked alike… he went back to watching TV while my heart sank a little.  He wasn’t derogatory or negative… he was actually quite matter-of-fact.  Ever since our prenatal diagnosis of Luke having Ds (which happened the week that Matthew turned one year old), I’ve wondered how having a brother with Ds would affect him… obviously I’ve always known that Matthew would recognize his brother was different than him at some point, I just never knew when it would happen…

Dustin and I, our friends and family, and Luke’s doctors and therapists (3 of whom are physically in our home every week) openly talk about Ds, it’s a part of our life now and it’s not common for a day or two to pass without someone mentioning the term.  I know Matthew’s heard it a hundred times or more so I’d always just assumed that he instinctively understood what it meant as he’s overheard so many of our conversations.  I let the conversation pass last night but resolved that the next time Matthew mentions someone “looking like his brother” to specifically talk with him about Luke having Down syndrome.  Considering he just turned 3 a few months ago, I’m not planning to go into great detail about what it means but am hoping that providing a name to explain the commonalities between Luke and his friends with Ds will help Matthew to internalize that our family isn’t alone when it comes to loving someone with Down syndrome.