“Oh, I’m so sorry….”

No, that’s not what people say to The Hubby when they find out he’s married to me. It’s the response that often follows the sentence, “My child has Down syndrome.”

I’m not here to chastise anyone. I mean, before I had my own little Flexible Flyer, I might have said that a time or two. After all, society tells us that it’s such a tragedy.

And it was, for a time, back when I lived out a lifetime of fears inside my imagination. But it quickly became apparent that I’d been sold the proverbial bill o’ goods, that the people who told me how terrible Down syndrome was had no idea what they were talking about.

I realize it’s still hard for a non-Downs parent to conceptualize. Having 3 non-Downs children myself, in addition to the velcro monkey, I feel qualified to put things in perspective for you. So here, in no particular order (why do I always feel the need to say that? As if you people would honesty expect anything resembling “order” to spring from a blog titled “Chaos Diaries.”), I give you 10 things that are more tragic than Down syndrome.

1. Having a run in your pantyhose

2. The thought that gas prices might rise above $3 again.

3. The fact that I didn’t get my Christmas tree down until after Mothers’ Day, and it’s almost time to put it up again.

4. Baking a hot, fresh loaf of bread–and then finding you’re out of butter.

5. Opening the jewel case of your favorite CD to find that last time you played it, you took whatever was in the CD player at the time out and stashed it in this case—and now you have no idea where your favorite CD is.

6. Having to vent your dryer out into the laundry room because the plumbers who ran the ductwork thought running the duct up through two stories and an attic out onto the roof would make infinitely more sense than running it 6 inches through the exterior wall, so now it’s always clogged and your dryer takes 3 hours to dry (and even then it doesn’t dry, it just slighty-less-wettens), and poses a fire hazard, so now every time you want to dry a load of clothes you have to open the window (which happens to be over the cat litter box) and prop the box fan in it to suck the hot, humid air out, because as posh as the idea of having an in-home sauna sounds, “black mold eradication” isn’t quite as sexy.

7. Peanut allergy. Especially when your 5 year old rushes into your arms crying after school, because one of her friends grabbed her hand on the way out of the classroom and of course, they ate PB&J for lunch and now she’s afraid she’s going to die any minute.

8. Traveling with 4 children.

9. Going to SuperTorture with 4 children

10. Being 14 years old and spending an hour flat-ironing your hair, only to walk outside in the humidity and have it frizz (which, according to my 14 year old, would also make it onto a list titled: “Things that are more tragic than the end of life as we know it on this planet).

I could go on forever. Seriously–you know I could. And what’s more–I bet you can come up with a few of your own. Leave me a comment, and let me know what things in YOUR life are way more tragic than the fact that you have a child with Down syndrome.

Tags: black mold, bread, butter, CDs, children, Christmas tree, Down syndrome, dryer, flat iron, gas prices, humidity, laundry, list, mothers' day, pantyhose, peanut allergy, sauna, SuperTorture, The Hubby, tragedy, traveling