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Audiology - an unexpected update

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Birthday hopes of height

My favourite dude turns 4 in a few days time. As two of his sister's have just had their birthdays he is VERY excited to have cake for breakfast.

As those who follow this page for Elis updates know, he is a very determined & cheerful soul. He is always trying to figure out ways to keep up with his siblings & peers despite his shorter stature & delayed speech. We have been blissfully safe in his own self awareness so far as he's not grasped what makes him different. But we are hitting that point now as two days ago he made it abundantly clear that he thinks he's going to wake up tall like his nursery friends on his birthday. I have spent time trying to explain that that won't happen as his bones grow differently from most people's, but he's not having it.

Yesterday at nursery was the first time he couldn't do what the average height children doing. They were using little stilts & he had for the first time ever gotten frustrated & gone & cried to the teacher.


It's the first time we are facing him grasping this concept & it hit me pretty hard. It made me sad to think that he may wake up & feel disappointed in being unchanged. Thankfully a good friend, who not only has dwarfism himself, but also has a son with the condition, gave me important reminders to help me feel positive again. The most important thing he reminded me of was that all our children have to face disappointments all the time & that they won't always get the toy they wanted or become the profession they dreamed of. He reminded me that Elis has a fantastic support network both at home & in the community that will help lift him up again the days when he's upset about his height. And he reminded me that it is Elis' amazing character that will see him through life - there will no doubt be pricks out there who are so unhappy in themselves they pick on others. And there will be days that Elis wishes he was taller but he will also learn to see all the amazing things he can do because of his infectiously happy personality as well as his dwarfism. 

His lovely nursery teacher and him made him some mini stilts of his own today (last photo). He was so happy he used the word "fabulous" for th first time.

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