For the Win!

Day 18:  Sunny, Partly Cloudy - Kind of Perfect

In our time with Bradley, we have learned some very valuable lessons.  I'll give you a couple examples:

1.  Always check your clamps, cause the kind of mess that could ensue is epic!

2.  No added Fiber...Dear Lord, please remember this...there is no movement when there is added Fiber!

3.  That extended playtime in an attempt to tire him out, um...yeah, about that... Try an 11 or 12 crash time, a lot of crying and forget the theory of sleeping through the night.  He can't handle coming down off that kind of over stimulation all that quickly or all that well.

4.  Don't make plans.  When you make plans something always happens to get in the way and someone always ends up upset.  I don't cry or anything, but you know, I get disappointed, it's the girls, they're the ones that cry.

But here's the beauty of Rule #4.  Spontaneity.  You know that saying: "Life Happens while you're making other plans"?  Yeah, that's not us.  Life happens here and now, it's when we start trying to make plans that the stuff that shouldn't happen does.

Need an example?  Sure.  How about the year Eric turned 40.  We were determined to go to Las Vegas so that he would actually celebrate and not be sitting on the couch.  We had so many plans, where we were staying, had the room booked, had friends set to meet us in Vegas to help us celebrate.  We were ready.  And then Bradley got a cold, reacted to the antibiotic, ended up with a small amount of fluid on his ears that turned into a burst ear drum, that moved into his lungs, and resulted in him being taken by ambulance from the ER to the hospital to spend five days there for Pneumonia, finally coming home on Christmas Day.

Another downside, the girls are very used to the change of plans routine.  They find out less and less from us about potential surprises, because they just don't take it well when something happens and we don't get to move forward with the surprise.  Madison is very vocal, Sydney is very internal.  Sydney's reaction is the one that scares me, she's more like a volcano getting ready to explode.

But to all this, there is an up side.  There is the fun of getting up to face the day, taking stock and deciding that today the little boy who has painful ears with no infection (which is so wrong) is doing well enough that we should go somewhere.  It's showing up at the San Diego Safari Park and hearing your daughters complain that the Park is boring, only to hear them squeal with delight about all the animals, and the tram, and by the time we reach the Gorillas, parents are getting grateful hugs because this place is amazing and they're having the best day of their lives.  Yes, with our girls it really does work like that!  It's laughing out loud and from the belly as the girls hide behind me because the hungry geese are blocking the path and trying to eat Eric's shoe because he isn't feeding them.  And then when the girls try to feed them, they end up throwing the food at the geese and running to feed the ducks cause the geese are eye-balling them and the ducks are so much nicer.  I think this was Madison's favorite part of the day!

And to take Bradley into a situation where there are so many people and the likelihood of a meltdown is probable, what a gift when he doesn't.  What a gift that when we decide what the Heck, let's push our luck and try the tram... he only tries to bail out of line three dozen times, but on the tram he sits on my lap like a trooper.  He pulls my arms around him like I'm his seat belt, and every time I move my hand, he pulls it back down around him.  We had a front row seat in our car, so he had no one to grab onto, and every time the tram stopped, he signed for it to "go again, more".  Every time I pointed to an animal he pulled my hand down and pointed for me.  And when we saw all the birds, he signed birds. Yeah and double yeah!  :-)

We thought that was it, we thought that we had just had the best part of our day, that we had braved the tram and his potential melting and come out unscathed...but life had other plans.  Life decided that it would be better to offer us a little more.  We met one of our most beloved families after we got off the Tram ride.  And believe it or not, that Park, is actually in the realm of a small world type park...we ran into them two more times until we met up at the entrance when the park closed and we made plans for dinner.

So for a day that started with an empty slot on the calendar, we filled each moment as it came, and made no plans until the very end.  Luckily, that worked out better than one could hope.  Our dinner with this family had the same quality as refilling the cracks in your spirit that life has a tendency to put there.  Sitting with them, talking, laughing, being with Family...that is what life is truly about.  We may not get to plan ahead for life's events like others, but we are fully aware that sometimes, life will take the lead and the stars will align so that the world will allow us a few moments of peace, and of joy.

And sometimes you just get lucky, that after a day at the Safari Park, an amazing time at dinner, followed by untold laps back and forth outside the restaurant; our son...the boy who can't seem to handle venting off of these type of liberties...managed to do just that once we got home and is already asleep and it's only 9:25.  Whether or not he can stay asleep after such a day as today remains to be seen and is the very reason that I am closing out for the night and putting myself to bed too.

My son, our life, these girls...there are so many mysteries, and my job is to try to piece them all together, I just wish sometimes that someone would either turn on the light or let me take the blindfold off so I could have a fighting chance of figuring any of them out.

Today we were Blessed a hundredfold.  It was everything he did and everything he didn't that made today great!  And at the end of the day, the Blessing of spending time with some of our most favorite people, that's what puts your soul back on track and leaves you feeling loved!

How do you bring Acceptance and Awareness to how awesome your child with Down syndrome is? Trust that he or she is going to bring the best people into your life and that they are going to make so much of everything, better!

Have a great Saturday night!!!