Seeing the Beauty of Gods Design in a “Slow” World

Paige is “delayed” or “slow”. Typically, that term is negative. It’s supposed to be! It takes her longer to do things, and sometimes her cognitive ability isn’t “up to her standard”. She fits the normalcy of a special needs child, a delayed child. However, I want to give another perspective – a positive one. An unexpected blessing.

Slowing Down Her Milestones

Typically, other mothers around me are having to chase after their little toddlers. They learned how to sit up in a month, then before you know it, they’re crawling and running, opening doors, and putting everything in their mouth! They’re so fast that parents use gates, crib bumpers, leashes, and so on. A typical child, in one to two years, goes from being a tiny little thing to a climbing adventurous 2-footer. 

The milestones are unbelievable! What wonders happen in just a span of a year. But they usually go so fast that parents don’t see the muscle activity from sitting up to crawling. It’s like it happens in “shutter” mode where it snaps tiny pictures and all you can see is the big movements. 

Paigey, on the other hand, is delayed. Everything about her physical and cognitive development is small. Someone at Bible study -a dear friend – stated to me “I love it how every tiny thing with Paige is HUGE!” What a compliment – and what a testament to our Creator, not us. 

The Design in Every Milestone

Paige is blessed with therapists – speech, feeding, physical, occupational, you name it. Sometimes she has more than others. Feeding is one that I particularly have enjoyed – simply because other children go so fast, I can’t even tell if they’re swallowing! Paige, on the other hand, has a chart of how many swallows she’s had that week – how many licks and tastes. She is slow – so the little things, become big. 

Did you know children have to go from “open hand” eating to eating with two fingers? Did you know they need to hold crunchy food in their fist, then hold it to the side of their mouth where the big teeth are to eat without choking? What about tasting – the little movements they do with their tongue – that is a milestone! Watching a child LEARN to eat is absolutely fascinating. Seeing a girl go from silently aspirating to learning how to slowly chew on a different type of food – using her tongue to push it side to side, using her hand to grab the piece that’s too much, then finally closing her mouth and swallowing – I never would have seen it, if she was not delayed. 

The Beauty of Delay

Yesterday at the chiropractor, once again they told me the CORRECT way to get up from laying down. Typically, I go straight from my back up! But you’re supposed to roll to your side and let your legs bear all your weight. 

Hmmm… I wonder what that reminds me of? Paige! Paige has just crossed the finish line of learning how to sit up. She never uses her core; she always uses her legs. The process of learning how to crawl begins with rolling from belly to back (took Paige about 14 months to learn), pulling legs in front of the chest (16-17 months for Paige), pushing on hands (not until she was around 20 months), then lifting your chest up by pushing the weight into your legs. You’re then in a side position with a lifted chest, and you can then resituate your legs so you’re sitting straight up. Paigey has just now begun to sit straight up, with her sassy little hand on her thigh making sure you noticed.

Because of Paige, I see every little bit. I see the beauty in her learning how to lick – the joy of seeing her follow us across the hall with only her eyes. God has given me the chance to see every little bit of her growth, and instead of shouting from the rooftops that my girl knows how to walk, I shout from the rooftops “She pushed on her hands and looked up!”.

Allowing the Beauty to Help Deafen the Grief

This is God. God gives us the ability to change our perspective – instead of belaboring on the point that Paige can’t do this or that, I am now understanding every little piece of milestones and I can now fill in the gaps for parents whose children go up too fast. I can find joy in little things, and praise Paige for every tiny thing she puts effort into. I can see how God designed her legs and core to work together and how her cognitive ability plays a part in sitting up. Or how a certain way she holds food in her hand helps her not to choke. 

I have a lot of grief – especially when I see other children younger than Paige doing things she can’t do. Yet God gives me joy in this aspect, and the more I think of it, the lesser the sound of grief is.