October 1, 2020
I think that the year has been crazy enough without my adding to it by doing something different than what I would normally do in October. So here I am, ready to start a month of talking with you and to bring awareness about Down syndrome while letting you into the rooms in our house. Mind you, most of the year seems to have happened on Zoom, and if you have followed anything about Bradley in the last few months, well - I am thinking even if you haven’t, you might have a pretty good idea of how FUN that has been for all of us. Hint: Bradley is not a fan.
Anyway, let’s move on. For now I’ll take you back to better days. Last year, my oldest was a Senior in High School, my Middle was a Sophomore and Bradley was a Fourth grade student. What we thought were the BEST of times, turned out to truly be the BEST of times. The girls played Varsity Volleyball together and we even have some visual proof of them on the court together - but most of the time Madison played front row and Sydney roamed the back and they subbed for each other. Either way, super proud parents.
For his part, Bradley was starting to attempt life in a small crowd, armed with his IPad and a few of the games even sitting on the bleachers with me, not always in the quieter confines of his stroller. Does he need a stroller? Yeah, he does. He gets pretty tired, but for the most part our world is small enough that he can traverse point A to point B without it. Longer journeys, he needs a little mobil way station and the stroller provides that. What else? Oh, those quiet confines... Bradley likes to watch the world happen around him while he has headphones on and can take his time to choose the moments he wants to view the outside world, or interact with the outside world. Things can be so incredibly overwhelming for him. So we would provide the safety confines of his stroller. He can kick back with his movie, his headphones in place and maybe ignore or shut out the rest of the world. It can be ideal.
So he watched some of his sisters playing volleyball and sometimes he preferred his movie, and sometimes the overwhelm was so much that he would close his eyes and sleep through it all. And when we thought he just didn’t like it, two things happened...one and then the other. First, the girls played on the same Club Team (again, talk about proud parents...both girls on the court together- a true gift!) and that meant our constant volleyball tournament schedule slid into about once a month. Bradley wasn’t inclined to like this, how do we know this? He would ask “Val-ball” in the mornings when he was getting changed and medicated. Hmmm... Maybe he was just used to the constant run?
Then, there was no more volleyball. No more School and dare I say it - no more Bus. You can imagine what he asked for the most... Bus. Everyday, for awhile. But because Dad has serious heart issues, the devastation of losing the Bus was not quite as devastating when your favorite person is home with you everyday. Turns out, most things are made better by having Dad here. :-).
But then, we started to get him asking for “Val-ball” and it occurred to us that though he might not be watching all the time, he’s enjoying the outing, the family being together. He loves the breaks between games where he and Mom tool all over the venues. He enjoys the differences in foods as Mom is always seeking the kinds of things he can eat, and experimenting to see what he WILL eat. It’s a day of few demands, and much high enjoyment on his part. We have to get up early and sit in the car for long periods of time so to make that up to him - “Yeah, you can have your movie as much as you want.”
Even in that last tournament; before the world shut down, he had the stroller to retreat too. What made us so happy was that when given the option, he chose to sit beside us on the bleachers for some of the games, and he looked up quite a bit. Will he remember seeing them play? No. Will he remember that he had success sitting like a big boy next to his parents on the bleachers? Probably not. Will we have to start all over when the world opens and we return to life again? More than likely. But then that’s the dance card that we have filled, a slow two steps forward and one step back. On the good days this is our status quo. Rougher days there might be quite a few steps back, but as long as we keep moving, there is always potential for moving into something better than where we are at right now.
And though this is how we have always lived our life with Bradley; it turns out, this is a survival skill that we never knew were going to need to get through life in general during 2020. Like we’ve been in training his whole life for these past few months. Did we have struggles? Sure, but none like so many others. We were able to reach out with support to try to help others and make connections to ease the isolation and loneliness that so many suffered through, or that is what we tried. As Blessings go, we counted ours and knew our counting was incredibly long.
It’s Down Syndrome Awareness Month Friends! Another round of the Blog Challenge: 31 Days for Trisomy 21!
#Perfectimperfections #31For21 #BlogChallengeT21
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