Our Guy....With Glasses

Well, our newest bump in the road has been that Reid's eyes have started to drift inward...sometimes more his left and then sometimes more his right, and often both eyes at once. We went to see the eye doctor and we were told he was very farsighted, which is what we were told last time as well...except this time they said now that he is older and his attention is held longer on items and he is focusing more to see things up close his eyes are drifting. To help strengthen those muscles we were told it was time for glasses.

I was not sure how he was going to take to glasses....so we set a plan in motion. While we waited the week for the glasses to come in I sent away for some books on getting glasses. We read and read those books in preparation, we oogled and ogled over anyone and everyone we saw in public or on tv that had glasses, and we bought Luke some frames because Luke is Reid's hero and if Luke will wear glasses chances are better Reid will follow suit. ...actually this was a surprise to Luke, I could tell he secretly wanted glasses so when I went back yesterday to pick up Reid's glasses I asked if they had any discontinued frames that did not have any prescription in the lenses..and viola they did and now Luke has glasses too.
When I walked out of the office with the glasses I quickly took Reid's out to see just how strong the prescription was and ...honestly my heart suddenly had this very sad feeling. I just sat in my car for a bit with that old familiar feeling of being hit in the gut when you realize your child will have one more struggle. When I looked through those glasses I could barely see anything...geez louise they are strong. The poor thing has been living with incredibly blurred vision all this time and it really made my heart sad.
We decided to "unveil" the glasses as if it was a present. We handed Luke his present first with prior directions to cheer and act excited when he opened his case (which truly he was excited to be getting his own glasses ;) ) and then we handed Reid his....which he opened excitedly with all of us standing near cheering, and then we had Toby put his glasses on that we had to dig out of the archives.
Below are pictures from the big "reveal" of the glasses.

Hmnnn...can I still dance around and be silly with these???

Whoa, what's going on....I can see so much better!?!

Seriously...that's what those Backyardigans on tv look like????

Mommy loves me in my glasses!!!!

Just being cute but goofy!

As part of our "plan" we decided to watch a children's movie after the big reveal so he would be engaged in the show and hopefully notice enough of a difference that he would not resist us in wearing them. He sat the whole hour and a half with them on.... I wonder what was going on in his little brain now that he can see so clearly!

.....and thank you big brother for indulging us by wearing "your" glasses ;) to help your brother!

Supermom Capes Only Hold So Much Power...

We've all had those days....you know, the ones that as you begin the days journey you realize that dawning the Supermom or Superdad Cape is a necessity to get all that needs to get accomplished accomplished...and with glowing results at that....

Wellllll....I had one of those days and I must say that by the end of the day my Supermom Cape was, well, worse for the wear...a little frayed at the ends one might say! ;)

Now I must note that this happened almost 3 months ago, before the therapeutic influence of Camp Intentional...had the events occurred today that cape and I could quite confidently have rocked the days events.

However, May 25th looked a bit different.

The day began as many do with morning baths for the kids, one too many reminders to brush teeth, a missing tennis shoe for Luke, some spilled milk by "Short Stuff", some scrambled eggs and pancakes woofed down by both, a squabble over packed lunch versus buying, and a perpetual search for Luke's backpack...you know just the usual stuff, not so much a big deal...

However, on this particular day I knew that I had a lot on the agenda and as I flew about the house to ensure both boys were dressed and ready for school I saw out of the corner of my eye the hem of ..."The Cape", the Supermom Cape ...saved for special occasions such as this day. I decided that today if any day was reason to pull old faithful out of the closet this was it, she has seen me through a few busy days.

On the agenda for the day, once the morning shuffle and double drop off was ensued, was to hit the local Barnes and Noble to meet up with some of the families I work with to collect work samples and perform a few assessments, pick Reid up from preschool, take him to speech therapy, put him down for a nap, teach an online 1st grade vocabulary development lesson while he napped, pick Luke up from school, go grocery shopping, make dinner, and freshen up for a marketing event I was hosting at a local coffee house for prospective families that evening for our school.

So.... I grabbed that cape and slipped on my 3 inch sassy brown shoes because just because I was wearing the "teacher hat" that day didn't mean I needed to look like a school marm and we were off to tackle the day...2 cute boys, a mom, a cape, and super sassy shoes...we were good to go!

Well the day began without a hitch ....until I received a call during my last meeting before I was to pick Reid up that he had a potty accident and well...he needed "poop patrol" to come take care of him. No biggy right?... any Supermom can tackle this without even a flinch. I politely brought my meeting to a close and the cape and I flew out of there.

After the preschool poop clean up....Miss Heals and Super Cape now headed off to speech with Short Stuff... do you like that I give myself a nickname here?...kind of just fits so I'm going with it. But, Reid zonked right out on the ride over...I am talking zonked, but that's okay that's what the cape is for...I tightened the knot at the top of the cape and did a little song and dance and viola he was up and alert for his lesson.

However...that little number to get him alert for his lesson worked a bit too well and he was in rare form the rest of the day...did I mention he was going to be napping during my online 1st grade vocabulary lesson???.....Ummm, yeah, that didn't work out so well. My only resort was to put an Elmo movie in and supply my guy with mounds of toys to keep him occupied while I closed myself off into my office for the lesson. But instead he found...a pencil....and a blank wall....sigh, pictured below.

But wait...that's not all folks. Apparently his 1st potty episode was just a teaser, as from my office I could hear him saying...EEWWWWW, EEWWWW and well, yes you guessed it, he pulled his pull up off and was staring at some eewwwy evidence that the first potty episode at preschool was only a prelude of what was to come. Yikes, I had to give my students a quick little drill to work on, put myself on mute, and put the cape to work once again to fly about the house to find the pull ups and wipes and then execute a diaper change in a nano second. See, I just knew today was a day for that cape...good thing I followed my mother's instinct.

However, as the day went on and we picked Luke up from school and headed to the store and I had to break up squabbles in the back seat and turn down requests for all things yummy and sweet to make their way into our cart, and superacrobatic like catch flying produce Reid was chucking from the cart...I could feel my supermom powers starting to weaken. I looked at that cape, invisible to all others, but to me I saw a few frays starting to form at the ends and even a few little holes from those sassy brown shoes that caught the bottom of the cape...darn those heals but I still thought they looked cute.

Sooo...when we got back home, unpacked the groceries, tidied up the house, and I heard Luke shout out for about the bazillionth time, "When are the steaks going to be ready" in a not so patient tone and I in stunned silence witnessed my toddler rip open and completely DUMP a brand new bag of spaghetti all over my bedroom floor....I stood frozen for a minute, I then untied Miss Cape and thanked her for her help during the course of the day but assured her that from here on out I was taking over...

I ordered the boys out of my room and for Luke to get his homework out as I cleaned up the spaghetti. In a rather sassy, attitudinal way if you will he informed me he only had 1 small thing for homework.....and then Bingo, call it the straw that broke the camel's back, call it whatever you want....that's when it happened....I resorted to....yes, I can barely even write it....SENTENCES. I. made. my. boys. write. sentences...a lot of them. I hated my 6th grade teacher Mrs. Sanguinetti for making us write sentences and here I was in the comfort of my own home with my beloved little guys banishing them to sentence torture.

Luke was a bit stunned...but complied and wrote, "I will not have an attitude". I had no intentions to have Reid write sentences but he popped up in the chair next to Luke and pointed to himself and said, "Reid"....so I thought, "Sure, okay buddy....you bet you deserve sentences too", so Reid's said, "I will not spill spaghetti on the floor ever again!". ....the only problem was, THEY LIKED DOING THEM!!!! Reid even scribbled on Luke's sentences when he was done with his.

That night when I was home from my marketing event and my boys were snuggled angelically in their beds I plopped exhausted into my own bed and curled up with that imaginary Supermom Cape and giggled.... Oh how I love those boys...even when they are rascals! ...and then reminded myself that these are actually the days that I am going to miss when they are big and grown!

1. I love my boys.

2. I love my boys.

3. I love my boys.

4. I love my boys.

5. I love my boys.

Breakfast Date with Blogging Friends

Two years ago I started this blog as a result of being inspired by Down syndrome blogs I found on the Gifts website. Every spare moment I had I would hop back onto that site to see if anyone had posted anything new and I began to develop favorites and then quite quickly actually started to become attached to kiddos... and their moms... and their families who share this extra chromosome...two of those blogs I found at that time were Three's a Charm and Finnian's Journey......and as my fabulous fortune would have it I got to meet the moms behind these amazing blogs this morning. We met for breakfast at Downtown Disney and honestly it was like sitting with old dear friends!

The kids seemed rather fond of each other too and were so well behaved... just look at these cutie pie guys!

Joaquin is so sweet! Both he and Reid were a little frightened by the animal sounds at Rainforest Cafe...which meant they both snuggled in to their mommas which meant no squiggles and wiggles, it was perfect....maybe I should always restaurant where there are sudden rants of jungle animal sounds and flickering lights! ...worked like a charm!! ;)

Oh little Sofia....I could go on and on about this squishable, huggable, loveable, adorable little love bug! Seriously....she was so huggable. She went right to me and even though she has these darling little pudge rolls she is still just so little-little. I had to hold her out front of me, legs dangling for a minute, just to drink her in...all smiles and waves she is!! If you are not familiar with Sofia's adoption story you can read that here...

And then little Finn....Reid has decided they are going to be good buddies, he was stuck like glue to Finn and kept patting his leg and getting close to him, even hugging him, pictured below, when Finn was trying to crawl around.

As Finn was crawling around the other two boys decided that looked like fun which resulted in them all crawling!

And these next pictures make me smile...as we all know it is hard enough to get one child to smile and cooperate with the picture taking but to get 4 kiddos was, well...comical especially when we had 3 different cameras going! Jennifer and Lisa I hope you don't mind me posting these but I love these pictures below because it is such a snapshot of this precious chapter of parenting...illustrated by kids slipping off of hips, pointing to the camera so our wee one will look, hair out of place and giggles because try as we might it just wasn't going to work to get the perfect shot ;)

I love that Reid and Finn are having their own little side conversation here!

...and then there is this shot that I am going to lovingly call "Charlie's Angels" except that one of the angels decided to look at the wrong camera! I laughed out loud when I first saw this one! ;)

Jennifer and Lisa....so glad it worked out today for us to finally meet...and Hector thank you for indulging us and giving us a few hours of your vacation, so good to meet you as well!!

Deedah and Me (a short film)

I recently became aware of this documentary called Deedah and Me about a big sister and her little brother who has Down syndrome. It struck me for a few reasons...one, obviously I love to see real people doing real life with Down syndrome sprinkled in because of course that is our life too and it is encouraging to me, you guys out there are encouraging to me...and it spurs me on to do better and to fight harder and to love deeper.
But it also struck me because Charlotte, the big sister, who is only in 2nd grade mind you is so articulate and so good with her brother....reminds me of a big brother in our house! I also found it funny that Deedah is her nickname given to her by Jonathan, the little brother, as a result of him attempting to say sister.....and the nickname over here given by Reid, the little brother, is Dah for Luke as a result of him attempting to say brother (or at least that's how we think it came about) ;).
Lastly I was also struck by how articulate Jonathan is with his own words and clear thoughts especially being only 2 years older than Reid and it makes me wonder if Reid will make that much growth in the coming years....it made me happy to see Jonathan just being a little boy, and what a darling little boy he is!!
The vision of this video is to help promote Down syndrome awareness in the community, for expectant parents, and for schools as well. I think showing this in classrooms is a great way to start the conversation regarding special needs and addressing the issue of bullying in school. If you wish to sponsor a school or Dr. office or even a library you can go to their website and buy it at their cost which is $6.00 + SH or get your own copy right now for $9.95.

**Before watching the trailer be sure to pause my music at the bottom of the blog.

Deedah Trailer from Philip May on Vimeo.