My (former) little baby boy turns 18 years old today.
I am not going to give a commentary about Down syndrome or the pandemic. We are simply going to pause to celebrate this young man's birthday. Aaron is the light of our lives. Anybody who knows Aaron understands what I mean.
A short aside: I watched the Schitt's Creek documentary and had an epiphany courtesy of Dan Levy: what was so wonderful about that show was that it depicted the ideal world - the world they wished it would be - rooted in love and compassion. We are building that ideal world around Aaron too. Then I heard Jason Sudeikis and Brendan Hunt talk about the Ted Lasso character on a Brené Brown podcast. They said that the exceptional thing about Ted Lasso was that he never changed - it was the people around him who changed just because Ted Lasso was being Ted Lasso. Aaron being Aaron has changed all of us too.
Oh and this meme pictured above. We laughed harder than we've laughed in over a year reenacting holding Aaron the day he was born.
In honour of Aaron, please dig around to find some joy for yourself today. And because it sucks to have your second birthday in a row during a pandemic, slide on over to Instagram to give Aaron some birthday love.