Just Another Day

I'm going to share a bit about our day, not because I'm looking for pity, but for your benefit.  I don't think I'm the only one who finds a bit of comfort knowing that other families experience silly disasters.  I'm guessing you've been in a disaster situation and thought "Why Me, Lord?"  Well for your benefit you aren't the only one.  Enjoy!
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Our "day" actually started yesterday morning.  Warren got one helluva sliver on Friday.  He's building armoires for the girls and in the process of sanding a 1/2" piece of stained and varnished wood jabbed into the pad of his pointer finger, in one side out the other.  But it didn't go all the way out.  It just poked the skin and then retreated back into the finger pad.  Ouch!!!  We worked on it trying to get it out, but had no luck.  Not sure of what to next he slapped a bandaid on and then went back to sanding.  Fast forward to Monday morning.  The finger is swollen, slightly warm and hurting like _____.  So off he went to urgent care.  Two doctors looked at it agreed it had to come out but didn't want to touch it.  They sent him to a plastic surgeon specializing in hand surgery.  She gave him two options:  1) MRI then removal 2) removal.  He opted for the 2nd option.  Three shots of lidacaine, a cut, and a pull and it was out.  All for an overgrown sliver.  The day continues normally until Joseph knocks the fish bowl off the kitchen table.  Glass, gems, rocks, FISH, water everywhere, everywhere!  We ended up moving the shelf and refrigerator in the clean-up process.  Of course I was in the middle of preparing dinner.  Tuesday started like any other day, a little banana on the floor, soggy grape-nuts left behind on the table, the typical.  But boy did it take a hard turn for the worse.  While sitting at the table with the older kids doing spelling, language and math I heard Joseph playing with the laundry basket.  No big deal I thought, at least he was occupied.  After a few more than a few minutes I went out to check on him and found the bathroom floor sopping wet, him sopping wet and a pile of clothes hanging out from the toilet bowl, lid closed.  Soggy toilet paper strewn about and Joseph soaking wet in fleecey pajamas.  I lifted the lid to find the toilet (which hadn't been flushed) jammed with clothes.  I'm guessing he got those from the laundry basket he was so innocently playing with.  Not the worst thing.  I cleaned it up using enough Lysol to kill all the germs in Wisconsin in February.  Joseph gets a bath.  Now it's just about time for lunch.  Emily makes Kool-Aid and as she's putting it on the fridge shelf she knocks over Amber's milk cup, which of course spills backward running down all the shelves and under the fruit/veggie drawers.  Again we clean it up and start on lunch.  Sam comes in to eat leftover ribs and attempts to get the Kool-Aid out.  Trying to lift the full pitcher and hold his cup at the same time he spilled lemonade down the fridge shelves, dishwasher and on the floor.  Again we clean it up.  We're laughing at the craziness by this time.  No more events at lunch but immediately after when Nick and Amber go to feed the fish somehow the fish food spills all down the book shelf and into Joseph's toys.  All I heard as I headed out the door to get the mail was, "THIS DAY!"  And last but certainly not least, when I got back from getting the mail the washing machine was making an odd noise and after a little investigation realized that we don't have water.  Not a drip coming out of any faucet.  What?  And that's it.  A little bit of our crazy life.  Tomorrow can't come fast enough.

Language Development and Down Syndrome



Hurdles, hurdles, and more hurdles is what it seems needs to be conquered when it comes to Down syndrome.  That's what the therapists, doctors, and books claim.  Low muscle tone, congenital heart defects, cognitive delays, speech delays, Hirschsprung's disease, sleep apnea, astigmatism, hearing loss, hypothyroidism, atlantoaxial instability, leukemia, sensory issues, strong gag reflex, constipation, joint flexibility, low stamina.  Is your brain overwhelmed yet?  Parents of children with Down syndrome can easily get caught up in all the possibilities, it's easy to do.  Yet, our ability to help our children develop to their fullest potential requires us to remain grounded and aware of the "what ifs" but not overwhelmed by them.

Joseph is at the point where he's conquered many hurdles:  inability to maintain body temperature, breast feeding, weight gain, open heart surgery, sitting, crawling, walking, drinking from a cup, using a spoon.  Some were bigger hurdles than others.  Now he's working on communication/speech/language development.  I've mentioned before that we started using the Baby Signing Time DVDs when Joseph was 1.  He began sitting completely on his own 2 weeks after his first birthday and at that time he began watching Rachel Coleman and all the babies sing and sign.  We all learned American Sign Language (ASL) along with him.  He didn't start to sign on his own until around age 2, maybe a bit earlier.  He began with the sign for more and eat.  Then added milk, drink and dog.  He's got quite a signing vocabulary at this point.  Regularly he'll sign the following words.

more
eat
milk
drink
juice
banana
cookie
cracker
water

french fry

cereal
grapes
baby
dad
mom
grandma
dog

cat

lizard

bird

horse

frog

fish

car

shoes

socks

hat

thank you
please

signing lizard which is on the next page

signing bird

Some require a bit of coaxing on our part:  please, thank you and mom.  And to the untrained eye others may be unrecognizable, but we know what he's saying for the most part.  Once he began to sign he also started "reading" books.  It's probably my favorite pasttime, just watching him sitting on the floor with a book.  He especially likes books about animals and vehicles.  He'll babble, turn the page, point, babble some more, sign familiar animals, turn the page, babble, point to the words, repeat until the end.  Then he'll grab another book and do the same.  Love it!  And now most recently he's begun saying a few words.

car - cah
shoes - hoosh
deer - deeh
daddy - da  or dada
eat - ee

fish - ohsh

cookie - key
dog - gah

Still no mama, but I'm confident that by 3 he'll be saying it.  Joseph has a speech therapy evaluation coming up later this week.  Last June the therapist did an evaluation and concluded that she "couldn't do anything more for him than his family's doing already".  I requested another eval just to be sure that I'm not missing anything.  I'm pleased with his speech development (except for the mama thing, what a disgrace) and believe strongly that Baby Signing Time was extremely beneficial to his speech development.  I've read in various parenting magazines that signing is useful in those inbetween months when babies can't talk but can express their needs.  Children with Down syndrome often have a delay in their speech development therefore knowing how to communicate through signs may ease any frustrations that come with a delay.  I don't have any proof of that.  I just know that Joseph is content; if it's because of his signing ability or our (mom, dad, brothers, sisters) increased awareness of his needs, I can't say for sure.  One thing for sure is that signing requires eye contact which aids in communication.

Spring Has Indeed Sprung

Last Monday the entire landscape was covered in snow and ice.  And today it's nearly all gone.  Last Friday, after three good melting days in a row, Samuel and I went for an evening nature hike.  We were gone for over an hour and experienced a great many naturey things.  I didn't want to be accused of documenting every step of the walk so I left the camera at home.  Sam enjoyed our walk immensely and told Dad all about it when home.  Here's what made an impact on him.

Large white lichen on a tree stump

Canadian geese breaking their way through the slushy ice

Bald Eagle flying overhead

Bright green moss on a Birch tree stump

Mole tunnels

Heard our first Spring Peepers

Feather - white with dark gray stripes

He also carried dad's BB gun and I wedged an oak leaf into the bark of a tree for him to shoot off.  Second shot and it was down.  Last year we took part in a Nature Club and look forward to starting that up now that nicer weather is here.

Other nature highlights from the last few days:

*Emily and I heard the Loon early Friday morning on our run.  All the ponds were still covered in ice - Good Luck!

*We got a lot of rain Saturday night which helped the grass green up.  Quite an amazing sight - you go to bed and the yard still looks mostly dead and wake up to green grass.  That was a pleasant surprise.

*Sunday's 80 degree temps really rotted the ice nicely and now today the entire pond is a sea of ripples.

The garden seeds are ordered, rose bushes pruned, leaning apple tree staked and garden gloves all washed and ready for a new season.  And I can't wait.

Two Picture Thoughts

Amber played Antelope Lope and Puff, the Magic Dragon in her spring recital.

Little J learning to dress himself.  By the looks of it he's got a ways to go.  That's his shirt he's wearing as pants.

We've had an unspringy spring so far, but that didn't stop us from learning about maple syrup making a few weeks back.  That was before our spring snowstorm covered everything in ice and snow again.  Anyway the kids (and mom and dad, too) had a great time collecting sap, straining it and watching it boil away.

It really jump started our desire to start making syrup.  We bought all the supplies from a neighbor years ago when she moved into town.  They were pretty serious sappers so we have a giant pile of supplies taking up space in the upstairs garage.  The kids are at an age where they can help, but can also stay behind and watch out for Joseph.  That's what we were waiting for so I can say that most surely we'll be making maple syrup next year.  But until then I'll keep making my homemade fake maple syrup which is much better than store bought syrup (not so thick and stringy)  What is cellulose gum anyway?