Down syndrome awareness month

There are many in the online Down syndrome community who blog, and there is this thing called 31 for 21. October is DS awareness month and bloggers write a post every day of the month (as you remember, DS is Trisomy 21). I may not do 31 posts, but I will write a bunch this month as I think about what it means to be an advocate for my son, how informative the online community has been, how it feels to organize an event for this month for my work, what I would say were I to give a presentation about being a "special needs mom" and more.  

But I leave you with this question, and I really am curious to know your answers:  what do you know now that you didn't before knowing Liam?  

Somersault.

Last night Lupe and Liam were rolling around and bouncing on the bed as they often do before bedtime. And then all of a sudden Liam did a somersault.  A real one. Took us all by surprise. 

Writing

Wow.  Lupe is starting to sound out words in her head and figure out how to spell them.  That is AWESOME.  As I do with Liam, I give her lots of INPUT: reading books, pointing out letters and sounds, etc.  and you're not sure if it's sinking in, and then one day, boom!  She comes home from school showing me what she can write. Her teacher tells me that she made the connection between Lu-pe and Lu-na.  She sounded it out and wrote it.  So below she wrote elephant, penguin.  and then Luna, ombligo, es belly button.  

This is fun.  

Sharing the joy

I have read that there are statistics out there showing that the rate of divorce among married couples who are raising children with special needs is really high. I mean crazy high.
And yes, there is a lot of extra stress.
But when Liam pulls a new trick out of his hat like saying mama last week for the first time or walking backwards, or even super subtle variations in the sounds he makes or the way he moves his body, all Pedro and I have to do is look at each other. We recognize the sparkle in the others eyes and no words are necessary. It is a joy that I can't share with anybody else in the world in quite the same way.

Holy cannoli, slow down!

Holy cannoli, this is happening too fast!  Ever since Lupe turned five in May things have been speeding up.  This summer she lost her first tooth (on the way to Paris).  She took swim lessons, cried a lot and then finally learned to swim a little bit. She started kindergarten.  She loves it. Her hair got longer, her legs got longer.  She still wants to be a mama.  She gets over tired and then cries in the shower cause I "have better dance moves" than her, or can hula hoop better. Oh my, where does that come from? She's learning to read- in Spanish.  She drapes herself over the couch like a teenager.   She's annoying and amazing.  

And Liam.  He turned two. In Heathrow Airport, London.  We came back from our trip and he really turned two.  Tantrums. Wriggles out of car seat straps.  Stroller straps.  High chair straps.  Shopping cart straps.   And, he's walking!  He'd been taking steps for a while, but in August we felt we could say he's really a walker.  And now it's September and he walks more than crawls.  It's awesome.  All these things that have taken so long to get to, but they do come.  And I know his walk will get better, he'll bend those knees and bring the legs closer together.  His talking, that's another slow one, but I can now confidently say that it will get there. But I want him to be as close to his peers as possible.  Thats why I work extra hard at certain things with him instead of just thinking he'll do things in "his own time".  It's still not easy sometimes to see kids his age doing so much that he can't do yet.  But that's just part of my roller coaster ride.  Some days it's cool.  Other days it makes me a little sad.  Up down.  

Let me end by saying that this week Liam said "mama". First he said it only when prompted (and this is after months, many months of asking him to say it). But I think I've caught him saying it a couple of times spontaneously.  Melts my heart every time, and will continue to do so.