Grant Me the Serenity

I steel myself and open her door. In the half-light, she's lying in bed awake, waiting for me. "Good morning," I chirp, full of resolve to start the day on a good note. She smiles and talks about going swimming with her bathing suit and floats...she must have been dreaming about swimming. The tension in my shoulders eases a little until I start getting out her clothes for the day.

"More bed!" she says. I tell myself to just go with it, and announce that sure, we can get dressed in bed today. And then it starts. "NOT THAT SHIRT. CROWN!!!" Ok, so I pull her crown shirt out of the drawer. Rinse, repeat until I find the acceptable pair of pants. And then the storm hits. I pull the available choices of socks out of the dresser and she howls. "Cake ones!!" I let her know the cake ones aren't clean but that she can choose which clean pair she wants.

And thus a hill is created. A hill that I have to decide whether I want to die trying to summit. At this point it's not about the socks anymore (is it about the socks?!?) and I leave her to sulk. She eventually makes her way downstairs and becomes absorbed in Curious George. I try to capitalize on the distraction and slip her butterfly socks on her feet. "NOOOOOOOOOO," she howls, "STRIIIIIIIIIPES." You know, the stripes I offered her 15 minutes before.

On and on it goes. Shamefully, I lose my temper and yell at her: "You are really making me mad!" At that point I leave her to it again, and suddenly it's over. She walks into the kitchen and sweetly requests a waffle. She smiles up at me and hugs my legs. Is this an apology? Is she just congratulating herself on having successfully driven me batshit insane before 8 am?

I feel so ill-equipped for this child. I am struggling to find a balance between picking my battles, but also drawing a consistent line. I feel like we're really at a crossroads here, where she is testing to find out whether Mama Means Business. I am giving her every opportunity to make good choices and be in control where appropriate but she just pushes, pushes, PUSHES.

I hear her right now, in her room, where she's supposed to be napping. The door opens and closes every few minutes...I guess she's trying to see if I'm going to come up and scold her. The real pisser of it is that she'll probably give in and go to sleep about 20 minutes before we have to leave to pick up her brother. Which is totally awesome because you know what? An under-napped toddler is an absolute joy to be around.

I feel compelled to acknowledge that as hard as she can be right now, we also have moments of complete happiness and fun together. I guess I have to just make sure we have adequate re-fueling stops to make it through to...?

No Use Stringing Him Along

So here's something quirky about my son that has, I assume, nothing at all to do with Down syndrome: the kid LOVES string. I first noticed it when I got out a set of wooden beads for stringing; Pacey dutifully strung beads while I was sitting with him, but the minute I left him to his own devices he disappeared with just the string. I thought it was maybe a fluke until I noticed that the set was missing both its strings (we've since been given another set, and both of those strings are gone too). Pacey loves to trail these strings around the house behind him, curl them up inside things, and frankly I am not sure what else. I just know that he frequently requests his string.

If one of the strings is not available, he'll make one. We received a bunch of Mardi Gras bead necklaces at a festival recently and he broke apart all of them to make strings he refers to as his necklaces or simply his beads. They have accompanied him to the park, into his speech sessions, and into his backpack to wait for him to finish school. It's kind of funny to watch Brighton because she sees how much he is into these strings and naturally thinks she wants HER FAIR SHARE of them. But she doesn't exactly know what it is she's supposed to be doing with them.

Anyway, the hard thing is that he really likes to wrap the strings around things and the other day I found him with the string to a helium balloon wrapped around his neck. It wasn't wrapped too tightly but it certainly could have been and it gave me rather a fright to see him like that. The balloon and all strings are slowly being removed from the premises and I can't really explain to Pacey why I am taking them away. I've told him countless times that we don't wrap things around our necks but he doesn't seem to remember. Obviously I can't take any chances but it's upsetting to see him so upset.

The other thing? He's not going to let go of this easily. I walked into the entryway just now to find this:

Two shoes, laces nowhere in sight. Resourceful kid...

Belated Letter to Pacey

Dear Pacey,

I owe you an apology, son. There is no possible way I appreciated enough what a sweet, easygoing, wonderful two-year-old you were. I don't recall a single tantrum, even in the aftermath of new baby Sister.

That very baby Sister, however, is in the midst of demonstrating just how Terrible the Twos can be. I think she is intent upon confirming exactly what the age cut-off is for relinquishing your child at the fire station.

Anyway, I had no idea at the time just how easy I was getting off with you and I fear I took you wholly for granted.

You rock.
Love, Mama

These Are the People in Your Neighborhood

Although I do stay home and take care of the majority of the domestic chores, I indulge in the "luxury" of taking Chris's work shirts and pants to the dry cleaners for laundering. When we lived in England a large portion of Sunday was devoted to washing shirts in our miniscule under-cabinet washing machine, draping them over every available surface to dry and then painstakingly ironing them. I think I've earned this little luxury.

Anyway, I use our local drycleaners, a shop that serves a small enough population that the completed orders are hung on racks in alphabetical order just behind the counter (no fancy automated conveyers necessary here). This provides a very interesting little look into the attire of the people that live in our area. Nestled among the film-wrapped packets of dress shirts in benign corporate stripe is the occasional gem:

- A sweater that must have been waiting patiently for its owner since 1987 when it was made, because lord knows no one could possibly be paying to have it cleaned to wear next week!

- A female Santa suit. And no, I don't mean a Mrs. Claus suit. There is nothing about this outfit that says "jolly, plump, elderly lady." It's been hanging in the shop since we moved here nearly a year ago, and I can't say I'm surprised. I'd be too embarassed to pick that up too.

- The young man working behind the counter one morning commented that he appreciated that I had separated and sorted the pants and shirts I was bringing in. I confessed that I started doing it not so much to be considerate, but because one time I didn't and I pulled a pair of Chris's underwear out with the pants. The guy laughed and said, "Oh yeah, we have one guy that comes every Friday and brings all his undies to be cleaned." Funny enough as it was, but this mid-twenties, pierced and tattooed guy calling them "undies" really tickled me.

- And finally, a royal blue swimsuit fully bedazzled with sizeable "precious stones." The only thing I can think about this is that it looks like a human version of a Barbie outfit from the 80s.

I don't know, the Midwest suburbs might seem sort of tame from an outside perspective, but I think we're pretty full of characters...

Friday Odds and Ends

Whew, it's been a week. Chris is on his way home after spending the first half of the week in DC and the second in Puerto Rico. We're pretty used to him being away, but the full week trips are sort of brutal. This one started out pretty rough but the kids (and I) have mellowed and are coasting into the weekend. Doesn't hurt that I hired a babysitter for a few hours this afternoon to get a couple things done sans ankle-biters. It never fails to amaze me how much faster things go without having to buckle/unbuckle/bribe/cajole anyone along with you.

+++

I was hoping that doing some food posts would inspire me to get out my recipes and cook more but...it hasn't. Especially when it's really just me eating (if possible P and B are getting more picky so it behooves no one to make an effort on their behalf), it's hard to get any oomph.

+++

On the topic of food though, I hosted a playdate for the MOMS Club I belong to. Since it's apple season, I organized an apple tasting with six different varieties. The kids were a little young to really *get it* but we had fun comparing the different flavors (unfortunately the non-organic beat out the organic varieties every time). Anyway, preparing for this playdate led to a fantastic discovery at Trader Joe's:

Fleur de Sel Caramel Sauce. This takes caramel apples to a whole new level...I particularly recommend it with a good tart Granny Smith.

+++

 In other sort of food-ish news, it's been in the mid-80s here this week and so I took the kids for one last after-school ice cream outing. For some unknown reason (temporary insanity, perhaps), I suggested that the kids might want these star-shaped popsicle things instead of the usual tiny (at my request) vanilla cone. Naturally they both thought frozen sugar and food dye looked awesome. Pacey took one lick of his and then proceeded to stare balefully at my cone until I turned it over to him.

And Brighton looooooved hers, but kept getting distracted and ended up wearing most of it. We won't make that mistake again...I may have to impose a moratorium on DQ trips for as long as it takes them to forget that there might be anything available other than vanilla ice cream!

+++

I posted this photo on Facebook when I heard that Steve Jobs had passed away. Photo of Pacey using the iPad taken with my iPhone, Pandora playing in the background on our iMac. As you can tell we are 100% an Apple family. 

+++

And finally, B fell asleep after dropping P off at school on Wednesday and then woke up crabby in her carseat because she hadn't slept long enough. I pulled her into the front seat with me and curled her long legs around so she could keep snoozing. Oh, these days are limited. 

Happy Weekend all!

Connections

One of the coolest things about having a kid with Down syndrome is the connections I've made with people I'm fairly certain I'd never have met otherwise. I remember when Pacey was just a baby I heard from several people that we'd joined the best club we never knew we wanted to be a part of. It was kind of an odd sentiment and I'll be honest and say it wasn't particularly helpful for awhile. But now? I totally agree.

Pacey started having therapists come to our house to work with him when he was just a couple of months old. It was a really intense time, and having their consistent presence there helped me understand him a little better, and allowed me to shift some of the "burden" of monitoring his development. I think it's fairly common for parents, especially in the beginning, to feel like we can never be doing enough to help with development. If we just practice more, seek out more, better therapies then our kids will keep up with their peers. We all have to reach a point (I think, anyway), of letting go a little and remembering to be a parent first and a co-therapist/caretaker second. That was particularly hard for me since Pacey had so many health issues and hospitalizations in his first year on top of everything else.

Anyway, by the time Pacey was three and transitioned from Early Intervention to the school district, I really felt like some of those therapists were family. I still think, when I see Pacey doing something particularly awesome on the playground, that I wish I could tell Joe, his physical therapist, that all his wonderful work with Pacey really paid off.

I've made some other really great connections as well. One of my best friends here in MN is someone I'd never have met had we not both mentioned to a personal trainer that we had a child with Down syndrome. It's funny too because it's only been relatively recently that I have started sharing that with people. I used to feel weird about it, like I was making it an issue by mentioning it, but now I realize how many great connections you can make with people in sharing that information.

I'd love to be able to say that this blog is another way to make connections with people. So if you're reading, leave me a comment! Tell me what your connection is to Ds, if you have one, ask me a question, or just say hi! It would be really cool to know who's reading. If you don't have an account that allows you to sign in, comment anonymously and just leave your name. Don't be shy!

Public Library FAIL

Mondays are a free day for us, no school or therapy sessions. This Monday I decided to take the kids to the library to get a fresh stack of books and let them play for awhile. We're really fortunate in that our local library partnered with the Minnesota Children's Museum to create a play area within the library that the kids love. With the exception of story times, it's usually pretty empty too. A great way to while away a Monday morning when I'm not up to a more adventurous outing.

Anyway, towards the end of our visit this week Brighton spied a little girl sitting with her mom at a kid-sized table near the DVDs that can be checked out. She's really got a thing for older kids right now so she marched over there and sat down. She immediately noticed that this little girl's entire stack of books and DVDs were princess-themed and developed a baaaaad case of Princess Envy.

Now, Brighton's tantrums are becoming less frequent as she develops her language abilities, but when I told her that the books and movies had already been selected by this other girl, she flew into FULL ON TANTRUM mode. Although the library is generally pretty empty I still didn't want to bother the other patrons with this nonsense so I quickly tried to find some alternatives (Elmo, Bernstein Bears, etc). Nothing was working and then this other mom saw her opportunity.

"Oh, you know what? Other Little Girl is only allowed to check out two movies at a time anyways, we can share one with your daughter."

Nice gesture, but I'm really trying not to reward B for this sort of meltdown so I demurred, letting her know that it was fine, we'd find something else.

"No, no really, I insist," she said. "Other Little Girl, how about we let her take home this one?" Other Little Girl grudgingly agreed and her mom triumphantly handed over this monstrosity to Brighton:

Nicely played, Other Little Girl's mom, nicely played. I have only a few questions at this point:

1) Whyyyyyyy was this movie ever created?

2) How was it ever justified as a purchase by the public library system

3) What are the chances I'll be able to return it before we actually  have to watch it?!?