A Good Saturday!

It's been a good Saturday.

We had planned for a great day.  I admit that I was a little concerned after yesterday, I was worried that a great day we had hoped for would turn into a Keystone Cops debacle.  Turns out, no keystones, no cops...a little debacle but in the end it was all good.  At the end of the day, I even learned a few new things and that will always make for a great day for me.

Eric let me sleep in this morning, and after making a valiant effort to offer to get up with him and Bradley, he sweetly refused and I turned over and feel asleep again.  I woke briefly when the cat decided to climb on top of me - I thought that might be it for me, time to get up but she started purring and well, right back out.  So that's it...see a really good day and a cat purring can put me right to sleep!  HAH!

Just kidding!  There was actually more in the day.  We'll just start with the cats, why not.  I'm working on taming our youngest cat to be more user friendly towards the girls.  Arwyn will sleep with Sydney, where she can pet her as she falls asleep - but not Yuna, Yuna is elusive.  So I've been working with Yuna and she is now to the point that she'll climb up and sleep on me at night, but before whenever I turned over she bolted...now I can move left and then right and I can't shake her.  She just starts purring and kneading my leg like she's laughing at me.  Oh well, she'll be transferring to the kids before we know it.  ;-)  I have faith!  HAHA

After the joy of sleeping in, we had other exciting plans for the day.  Last weekend we went to San Diego and enjoyed the Buddy Walk and our Family, I mean Team down there.  This weekend, we decided to attend the Down syndrome Celebration walk that the Rainbow Connection Resource Center put on.  I guess the Buddy Walk for Los Angeles was going on this morning, so they intended for this to be a small alternative to driving to LA.  Since we don't know anyone in LA, we were okay to stay up here.  We didn't know if we would even have a Team up here, our greatest support has always been in San Diego.  But we went anyway, and we were surprised by those that are more than willing to support Bradley in all ways.

We were honored to have some of our new Physical Therapy friends join in the walk with us today.  These are the ones that kept my shoulder functioning for as long as possible while Bradley was too fragile for me to consider surgery.  Once I had the surgery, they are the ones that are helping me to get my shoulder back together better than ever.  And I have a few glitches still, but not too many..I am almost back to superwoman status!  :-)  Or something like that anyway. ;-)  But these newest members to our Family, I mean Team...they work on more than my shoulder.  They know me, they know my family, they know what we've been through with Bradley and they care very much where he is today and where he is going.  These guys are invested in Bradley, in his future, in all of us.  And in them I have found treasured friends.  So yeah, look how great this day was!

The walk was small, the group was small, but not too bad when you consider the amount of small advertising that was done to prepare for it.  If they decide to make a go of it, there will be plenty of "Buddy Walkers" to come on out and support Down syndrome and Awareness in this area.  It sort of feels like we might be making some headway on this.  Maybe we're getting the word out and maybe we're helping the baby steps forward towards Acceptance.  Wouldn't that be fantastic?!  :-)

We're so very happy our friends came when they did, Eric and I had both been turned off by an over-bearing parent that almost had us backing away and reminding us why we don't spend too much time hanging out with other parents of differently-abled kiddos around here.  That extra chromosome just makes the kiddo amazing, it doesn't always create likeable parents.  ;-)  But oh well, we managed to get through it and still have a really amazing day, possibly in spite of them?  Probably more like once we had our Team, we were happy and secure and not much had a chance of dampening our good spirits.  It's amazing the power of people that care about you, and how nobody else can really get to you when they're around.

We finished our day at the playground.  The girls bailed on their brother as is their habit.  I don't know why they do this, but offer them other kids and they forget they have a brother.  But that's all right, Bradley and I played together instead.  I found it fascinating that when he got up on the platform he was afraid, there are big holes in the decking and it's the same color as the sand below...together, it sets Bradley on edge and he can't determine deck from ground so much that I could feel his whole body shaking in his fear, but he wouldn't come to me, he would hold my hand, but he wouldn't give in to the fear.  Instead, he moved to an area that felt safer, he retreated to the tunnel.  From here we played the kisses game, I peeked in at each little hole and he would come over and kiss me, then follow me to the next hole.  Out of the tunnel, his fears were bigger than him, but not stronger than him.  What an amazing kid, shaking from head to toe...but happy to be right there playing.  He's my hero!  He embodies my favorite line from We Bought A Zoo! : "All you need is 20 seconds of insane courage, and I promise you, something great will come of it."  He lives this.  Madison lives this. In her way, so does Sydney.  Not sure where they learned it, but sure am hoping that I can learn it too.  :-)

So yesterday all those big plans went to the wayside and were not frustrating so much as baffling.  So today, we planned to go for a walk, the good news is, it was a really great walk and in the end we had a really great day!    Now to get Bradley to sleep through the night and not be awake every two hours ...and that will be a great night!  Wish us luck!

The last Saturday in the "31 for 21: Challenge" time sure flies in an amazing way when you blog about those you love so much!   I am one Blessed Mom, I have great kids!  And I have one great husband too.  It takes two to run this crazy house and I'm Blessed to have this partner to help me through all of it.  :-)