the walls are going to change

That was my thought after I came into the house yesterday.

The walls are going to change.

I shut the door behind me and turned around. On the wall to my left was a nice collection of Cayla's pictures. Some six-month pictures when we couldn't get a smile. A big smile we caught with her "Daddy's Little Monkey" shirt on. Cayla sitting in a cup with a cute headband thingy on her head. A one-year picture out in the leaves with a big ol' smile. One from the hospital the day she was born. And a picture from last fall when we took her to a park for some pictures. She is wearing pigtails with a goofy look on her face.

Right now, the wall is hers. There is only one Garland kid on that space for all to see. Only one Garland kid we've loved. And that's about to change.

To put it simply, Cayla has been our world for the past two and a half years. There was anger and disappointment initially. Leah remembers holding her after getting "the call" from the doctor confirming Downs and then crying many painful tears. I remember the phone call from Leah shortly after school asking me to come home as soon as possible. She was crying and I had a foreboding sense of why as I drove home. Neither of us will ever forget when I came home and we hugged and cried and slumped to the floor in the kitchen.

We remember the awkward visits as people met her for the first time, many of them unaware of her Down Syndrome. In the back of our minds we wondered if they could tell and weren't sure exactly what to say.

We remember mourning the loss of our own hopes and dreams for her. Praying that God would take away the longing for a "normal" child. And the jealousy that sometimes crept in as we began to notice her development coming much more slowly than for other kids. Looking back, many of these things reflected selfishness in our own hearts, but we were also saddened as we realized the challenges she would have to face in her life.

Yet every month that went by, God allowed our hearts to be transformed. Every rare smile captivated us. We saw her unique ability to make other people feel loved and happy. We thought less and less of her handicap and saw more and more of her personality and abilities.

Milestones seemed to take forever, but we felt such happiness when they came. Rolling over. Sitting up. Crawling in her own unique drag-one-leg way. Two steps in St. Louis. Finally overcoming her frequent spit-ups. And then figuring out how to walk at over two years of age.

And her deep, throaty giggles. Funny voices and antics. Reading her books loudly and playing with dolls. Dancing like crazy. Looking at us and asking for "mo, mo, mo" every time an American Idol song got over. Rewinding the DVR to play the same song again, making her very happy.

It's hard to put into words how much we care for Cayla. Despite our imperfections as people and parents, God has burned in our hearts such a love for our princess, as Leah loves to call her. What a gift we were given.

Now as we prepare to welcome Cayla's brother or sister, there's part of us that is mourning in a different way. We will never again have Cayla all to ourselves. No, I'm not saying we're sad about the new baby. We're very excited and can't wait to see Cayla as a big sis! But in a way, our lives with Cayla will never be the same. She'll never again have us all to herself. And vice versa. A phase of our lives is over.

And that's been a little sad to think about the past week. It's hard to think about loving another child when all we've loved is Cayla. Will we feel guilty about giving less to her? Will we short-change the new baby because Cayla demands more than the average child? Honestly, we're not sure exactly how to navigate the waters that are before us. And it's a little scary.

Yet we know this: we trust in a King. A King who gave us a Princess 32 months ago. And soon, we will be blessed with another child. Yep, Cayla will be sharing her wall. As well as our love and our time. But she will always be our Princess.