It's a DRY day

As the parent of the child with special needs, you learn to rejoice in every teeny, tiny little bit of progress. When milestones are ticked off by Miss G, the joy we feel and the sense of achievement are absolutely enormous. I've often said about G's milestones, and I'll say it again as it is SO appropriate, but on days like today, I can't imagine winning the lottery would be more exciting.

The physical and emotional energy exhaustion, the constant investment of time and the at times all but crippling cost of raising a child with special needs isn't anything near easy. BUT, on days like today, every little bit of blood, sweat, tears (and there have and always will be lots of tears) invested is SO worth it.

And why the celebration today? Georgia has had a DRY day. Yes, Georgia and DRY in the same sentence! It's taken 6-1/2 years, reward charts and stickers galore, games, a toilet training course to see if there was something easy I had missed (and alas, no there wasn't) and so much more but today, SHE DID IT. Not ONE wet Pull-Up. She even took herself to the toilet at a friends home tonight, undressed herself, redressed herself (albeit with shorts on backwards but who cares?) and then came to tell us what she'd done. Talk about a RED LETTER DAY.

As with everything in the world of G, we know there will be setbacks, we know that this is just a first and tomorrow might be quite the opposite. But now we know SHE CAN DO IT. And having done it once, hopefully she can do it again and again and again.

Luke and I reflected tonight on our good luck. How lucky are we that G was given by God to us to be our daughter? How lucky are we to be Blessed with the absolute joy of seeing her achieve milestones? How lucky are we to know how hard fought these milestones are and to share in the ecstasy of achievement with her. We decided that although parents of 'normal' kids may have a simpler life than ours, they don't get the highs we do on days like today. And we wouldn't swap our life for anything else.

Well done Miss G. We are so extraordinarily and incredibly proud of you.