The Instagram Picture

There’s this super grainy, iPhone iOS5 picture that I love (that picture up top), and every time it pops up in my Instagram memories, it makes my heart smile — such a sweet time.

Ha! The young, naive mama behind that camera.

What that mama didn’t know — what I didn’t know — was what I didn’t know yet…

In this picture, my second little boy, and tiniest love, Eli William, is eight months old, stretched out on a fluffy white blanket I found tucked away in the living room chest of the condo we’d rented on the beach in Alabama. His unruly curls frame his head like a halo, and his grin is so wide you’d never know it was the small hours of the morning — or that his mama was praying to all the angels above that he might decide to sleep again soon. His mama, by the way, who was exhausted from the seven (turned nine) hour drive earlier that day — the one where Eli either slept or screamed, no in-between.

Fast forward a few hours. The rest of our little family is fast asleep, and Eli is happy as a lark, ready for playtime on that fluffy blanket in the middle of an unfamiliar living room. I figured, if I had to be up, I might as well snap a cute pic for the ‘Gram! So, there I was — crouched over him with my phone, framing his sweet face, eyes burning with tired but heart full, content in that tiny moment.

Later, after husband tagged me out and I finally got a couple of hours of sleep, I grabbed an extra-large cup of coffee and headed out to the balcony to listen to the morning sounds of the beach. That’s when I posted that photo — captioned “Baby on vacation 😍 #curlytop.”

The likes and comments came quickly, hearts filling my notifications. To all my ‘Insta friends’ scrolling through their feeds, it was a postcard moment. I mean, he was such a cute baby — pure joy captured at the perfect angle. But what no one saw were the worries and doubts already starting to creep in.

See, in almost every picture of Eli, he was lying down or propped up. That’s because at eight months old, he couldn’t sit up on his own yet — not even a little wobbly sit. While other babies his age were perched upright, proudly bobbing on diapered butts, maybe toppling forward before pushing back up again, Eli stayed flat — just like in that photo — horizontal on that blanket.

Still, I’d convince myself of all the things “they” tell you:
“Don’t compare, mama.”
“We all get there eventually.”
“Let’s just wait and see what kind of progress he makes.”
Oh, and my all-time favorite — in the midst of potty training woes — “He won’t go off to college in a pull-up, Mom!” (We’ll come back to that one later.)

If I had a nickel for every time I heard some version of those lines, I could’ve bought myself a beach house instead of the beach umbrella and sand pail we picked up at the Publix down the street — an umbrella and pail that probably got left behind at that very condo.

The truth is, I wanted to believe it. I wanted to laugh off the worries, to roll my eyes at milestone charts, to nod along with the other moms who swore their kids also “just needed more time.” But I couldn’t ignore that quiet whisper in my gut that said something was… different. A whisper that grew louder with each passing month: What if this isn’t just a waiting game?

That Instagram post is where Eli’s story really begins — not because of the sweet baby smile, but because it marks the first visible point in time where the gap between what the world saw and what I knew in my bones was so contrary.

Everyone else saw a happy baby in their feed that morning.
I saw a curly-haired, smiley question mark wearing red-and-white striped footie pajamas.

Over the next ten years, four months, and one day, we would ask more questions than I ever thought possible — of doctors, teachers, therapists, and specialists. And at times, it felt like we couldn’t win for losing.

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned since that sleepless night in Alabama, it’s this — the moments that once scared me most have shaped me the most. The answers didn’t come easily (and some still haven’t), but every step, every tear, every “what now?” has added another nickel to the jar.

If only that sleep-deprived beach mama knew what was coming… she might’ve skipped the cute photo and gone straight for another pot of coffee. But then again, we wouldn’t have the picture— and honestly, that is where it all began.

Susan