Mother's Day

As usual, my Mother's Day mostly sucked. But this year (finally! Only took me 20 years) I was expecting it so there wasn't much disappointment. The only time I got to play the Mother's Day card was when Jack announced he pooped in his pants and I was like "Mother's Day! I don't have to clean him up!". But as it turned out there was no poop so I kinda feel like I wasted it. I did get a Spongebob card that the kids' signed and it was cute! Allan made breakfast (like usual for a Sunday) and added hash brown casserole which was delicious. Andrew and Madelyn both made a point to wish me Happy Mother's Day which was nice. I know they love me. All of them.  I just think of all the times I try to make special days special for them - birthdays, holidays, special occasions. I say it would be nice to get a gift that I didn't pick out or a dessert I didn't make. But no. Never happens.

And I don't even have my own Mom to celebrate or commiserate with.

No bitterness here. Nope, none at all.

Down syndrome

(Written waaaay back in March when I was getting ready for World Down Syndrome Day on 3-21!)

Do I hate Ds?

Do I consider it a blessing?

Do I care that my children can’t run fast?

Do I care that they will learn slower than their peers?

Do I care that they share certain physical characteristics with other individuals, around the world, that we aren’t even related to?

Nope.  (Not always, anyway.)  However,

The problem is :

There are some health conditions that people with Ds can be more suseptible to (we are lucky – our littles are very healthy with the exception that D take a pill daily for her thyroid).

Their mental cognition is slower, so right now I have a 7 yr old who isn’t potty trained (we’re getting there, it’s just taking a loooong time and I’m impatient) and the 6 year old is doing great except at night.  They don’t read yet.  And the big problem - they run away from me in parking lots and stores and EVERYWHERE.

I am ready for them to be more like typical 7 & 6 year olds, in that I wouldn’t have to worry about them walking out the front door and away from the house.  I would like to not have to hold their hands when walking out in public every second.  They are getting bigger and stronger and more resistant to hand holding but seriously, they run and run fast if I let go for a second to open a door or get my keys out of my pocket.  It’s hard to do things, go places, run errands with one of them and nearly impossible with both.

And I want them to read and write, be able to add and count money and tell the time.  I’d like them to be able to live as independently as possible when they grow up and those skills are essential.  Maybe they will; It’s impossible to know right now.  Right now they don’t have these skills. 

We are seeing progress; it’s just slow.

Would I change them?  Trade them?  Wish them away?

Heck no!  No, no, no!  I might wish away the cognition issues but overall, I couldn’t love them more.  When we have a fit, or something takes a long time (like putting on socks) or they are picky about a shirt or a show, I have to remind myself that they are little kids!  My older kids certainly had their own opinions too.  So I feel lucky, because I have my older kids, who threw fits, and had opinions, and who didn’t (don’t) always make the best choice, and they are turning into awesome people.  So I remind myself that we have plenty of time and lots of these issues are people issues, not only Down syndrome issues.

Puppy!

Occasionally I will look around craigslist.  You never know what you might find that you need!  I generally look at dressers and tables and cars.  Awhile back, I found myself looking through the pet ads, even though most of them generally make me sad.  When I decided to switch Holly’s dog food I did a lot of research on what to get for her and found out she’s a senior dog :(.  She is 12 but still playful and active.  Anyway, that’s what started me looking at dogs – not so much to get one, just to look like I do at cars.

One night I was scrolling through the ads and a picture catches my eye (I wish I had saved it.)  I showed it to Andrew and Madelyn.  The eye catching part was that this puppy looks just like Holly did when I found her!  We all agreed on that.  So I called the lady and asked what the adoption would entail (she runs a rescue) and among the details, she said she could meet us at a park so we could check out the puppy in person.  I asked Allan if we could and promised we would not bring home a dog without his permission – and I truly meant it.  Off we go to the park and every one of us fell hard in love with this crazy bouncy ball of busyness!  She’s so stinkin’ cute!  We call her Luna (Andrew because he has a fascination with all things universe-related and me and M because of Luna Lovegood, you know from Harry Potter!).

Meet Luna:

Isn’t she just so precious?!?!

That was months ago, like 9 of them!  Yep, I am seriously behind on posting but trying to catch up.

Luna is now a year old, and house trained, and completely awesome!  We are still working on basic training, like come, and stay.  She doing great with sit and not chewing on non puppy toys.  She was so hyper and crazy I have decided it’s just going to take time.  But she’s so dang cute and cuddly and smart.  She’s a great dog!  As far as being Holly’s best friend, not so much.  But they get along okay so I’ll keep trying.

They suffer together (hahaha),

and they share my lap occasionally.

About Andrew…

This post really should go on his own page.  Maybe I’ll move it later.  Can I do that?  Anyway;

Andrew got a new car.  He bought it with his own money.  It was a little bit of a debate – should we use that money for this car or save it for college, which was it’s purpose.  But we decided that since he will be going away to college and the Camaro isn’t long distance load ready, and he had the cash to pay for the car (no loan), and this car will last him through college at least, it was a good idea to do it.

Since we are car people and Allan is THE car guy, we always have specific requirements for a vehicle.  This car meets them all :).  (I won’t bore anyone with the list haha.)  And also important, this particular vehicle was on Andrew’s list as a car he would drive!

So here it is -

Pretty right?  1999 Dodge Avenger.  Andrew is very happy with it.  Like I said, this car was on his short list of “what I would drive if I could (realistically) pick anything”.  It was even first, I believe.  There’s a whole ‘nother “the sky is the limit” car list, of course.

It’s a little bit of an adjustment to stop driving the Camaro.  He is soooo my son.  I’d still be driving it too.  Love that car.  It wants to go!  Someday, it will have all it’s “issues” fixed and I WILL drive it again.  Anyway, there is this road.  It’s fairly new, very out-of-the-way, not much of anything on it, very untraveled.  So it’s almost a requirement to go very fast on it.  Very fast.  Even in the mini van, I can’t resist.  So even though my outside voice says to Andrew “don’t go too fast and get a ticket”, my inside my head voice says “how fast did you go today???”.  The new car has been broken in lol.

New Dishwasher!

This is my new dishwasher!!  After a year and a half of hand washing all our dishes, I bought a new one and Allan installed it, all in less than a week!  It's quiet. So quiet. I loooooove it!

I mentioned to my oldest son today that I was born when my mom was 26 and he was born when I was 26. So I am now the age my mom was when I was the age my son is now. Got that? Blew both our minds for about half a second, then I started thinking how different I am at this age compared to how my mom was. There are a lot of similarities too, but the differences are what come to mind first. I wear jeans; don't think she ever did. She hurt her back at a relatively young age and wasn't able to do much physically after that with us; I try to take walks and play at the pool. But I know she loved me just as much as I love my babies, and that is a helluva lot.

Dance Recital

Waaaaay back on June 1 (see I’m trying to catch up here) Jack and Dasha got to participate in a “Dance Concert”.  They had been active in a dance class since Aug., and this was their chance to SHINE (the theme of the recital).  I wasn’t sure how it was going to go but went to the rehearsal with high hopes.  I came home from the rehearsal with prayers on my lips and dread in my heart (that means it didn’t exactly go great).

That was Dasha’s expression pretty much the entire time she was on stage!  She just couldn’t stop looking surprised; it was really funny.  And Jack couldn’t stop looking at everyone else (maybe that’s because his genius mommy forgot to bring his glasses and he couldn’t see!).

 

(Post recital cuteness!)

The actual recital went great.  The kids did their dance (Dasha only tried to leap off the stage once!) and they received thunderous applause!  The class was made up of kids with specials needs and each child was assigned a “helper” to ensure no one wandered off  and remind the kids where they were in case they forgot :)  Jack’s helper was a special girl named Madelyn.  Yes, big sister Madelyn!  After the recital we took ourselves out to lunch to celebrate.  It felt like a special day!