Friday, October 5, 2012

Day 5 - 31 for 21! Happy Down Syndrome Awareness Month

Day 5  - 31 for 21!  Happy Down Syndrome Awareness Month


I always worry that with Bradley’s medical needs and his developmental needs that the girls will feel like they aren’t getting enough attention.  We really try, we’ll divide our time and take them places with just one of us, and we tackle more complicated situations with the whole family and try to make the best out of a situation; church is one example.  Bradley will be mute all morning, sitting on the floor reading a book for thirty minutes, quietly and alone.  Ha, put him in a church pew and suddenly he has an opinion about everything and did you know those high ceilings echo and that that is the greatest thing in the world to an almost three year old?  Yeah, makes Sunday one adventure after another, especially if he doesn’t agree with the sermon that day!  But for the most part, the girls have always wanted to know their brother and help with him.  It certainly helped matters that God gave us the cutest little baby to work with, I mean, we're talking about little girls who spent hours playing mommy to baby dolls and then Mom hooked them up with a real live one that was way cuter than the plastic one mom got them last year.  They know he has an extra chromosome and they know what it means, but for them, he was just a baby that became this really cute little boy and with their help he was our baby and now he’s just a little boy for their Dad and I.  And we all are aware that maybe he wouldn’t do things as quickly as other babies, but we know he's going to do them. 
When he was tiny, he had to eat and fill diapers and both girls wanted to feed him, great…and they both wanted to change him…hmmm… yeah well, sometimes he pooped and that was a major turn off to the youngest.  It went something like this:
He was in a pack n’ play at the end of our bed, one side a changing table the other was a very comforting little bassinet type contraption that he was quite happy sleeping in.  Everything was pretty low for our adult backs but perfect for the girls.  I was getting to ready to change him when the youngest came running in to do it.  Ok…have at it.  She unbuttoned everything and moved clothes out of the way, put a new diaper under his bottom, then gently undid the tabs of his diaper.  She pulled back the diaper, noted that he was poopy, without looking up, she just as gently put the diaper back and redid the tabs then looked up at me.  She shrugged and grinned with a small shake of her head and turned and took off down the hall.  Apparently, her contract didn’t run towards poopy diapers.  Even today, if I want him relaxing, maybe even sleeping…she’s my girl.  She’ll sit with him and she’ll sing him to sleep, or read to him and he’ll sit and stare at her in complete awe and with complete adoration.  If I need a diaper changed for him…I cannot find her anywhere in the house.  It’s like she has a diaper radar that goes off in her head and sends her running as far from him as possible.  A babysitter applicant she is NOT!  
My oldest is that applicant, so I leave the occasional diaper change to her.  Every now and again she decides she wants to take care of her brother and she’ll take him back and change his diaper or help with his bath, and she is really quite good at it…but she’s also 10, so her focus is a little lacking. I’m not certain that given a complete hour with him she’d remember where she put him.  But she always asks me when she can babysit her brother and I alawys smile and tell her vaguely: “When you’re older.” 
In my head it’s something like: “Ahhh...ummm...Sixteen, maybe twenty, twenty-five????  Thirty?  SOLD!” 

Okay, so I’m not great at projecting into the future and seeing my kids as all grown up there.  In theory, I know that someday she will exhibit great maturity and composure; but for now, she’s still a ten year old girl in a big hurry to grow up.  But the occasional looks into the teen and then adult she WILL be, are both encouraging and frightening!

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