Life with Anthony

Subject: Life with Anthony Fri 15 Feb 2008 - 12:46

Quote :: For parents with three small kids -- Michael is 4, Jack's 3, and Anthony is 2 -- Lisa and Mike Spellman are surprisingly calm people. From the jumble of bright plastic toys, to the family pictures on every table, to the five baby gates in the downstairs alone, it's obvious that they've happily surrendered to parenthood. Lisa (a former attorney, now an at-home mom) and Mike (a neuroradiologist) take it all in stride, even when the volume in their Nashville house approaches deafening.

In the playroom, Michael and Jack roll their toy cars while Anthony watches, rapt, laughing whenever they do. He's too young to get the joke, but he's fully part of the gang.

So when Mike was at his high school reunion on Long Island a while back and going on a bit about the radical changes in his life since he became a dad, he was startled to hear an old friend say sympathetically, "I could never understand what you're going through." Mike just looked at him. "It took me a while to realize what he was talking about," he says.

Devastating news

The friend was talking about Down syndrome...