A blog about LIFE...that happens to include Down syndrome!
When Everett was about 6 months old we took him to have his picture made with Santa at a local mall. When we got settled into the long line of families waiting for their obligatory Santa photos, we realized the parents in front of us …
In this confession I’m going to address prenatal testing with one caveat — this post is NOT, I repeat NOT, meant to stir up personal and political opinions related to pro-life/pro-choice issues. If anyone comments as such, your remarks will be deleted. Here goes. When …
I mentioned in a previous post that we were quiet about Everett’s diagnosis on social media for about a year. To add to that, I’ll have to confess…I took a long social media break during those early days. It was just too hard. I was surrounded by friends who were having typically developing babies and doing typically developing things. At the time I felt like I couldn’t relate. And I also felt very alone. So I chose to focus on my new child and everything that came with his diagnosis, rather than social media. I also chose not to reach out to other local moms in the DS community because of our past experiences sharing the news of Everett’s diagnosis. What would these people say about my baby? Would they be supportive/happy people, or depressed/negative people about DS? Quite frankly, I needed positive/supportive at that time and couldn’t risk the latter. Continue reading Confessions of a Rockin mom #20: Fear of reaching out
We didn’t announce the fact that Everett was diagnosed with Trisomy21 until he was about a year old. We told friends & family, but we let our social media peeps figure it out for themselves over time. I believe I made it FB official 2 …
Looking back, I had an early fear that quite frankly was a little ridiculous. After Everett was born, I immersed myself in any and all research related to Down syndrome. I learned quickly that kiddos with DS often are shorter and smaller than their typically …
I get a lot of praise from others who describe me as a stellar parent, which means a lot to me (thank you to those who have said that). Being a good parent falls right under living a Christ-like life, in my book. But I’ll have to confess…I get a lot of help. Because it takes Everett a little longer than his typical peers to meet basic milestones like crawling, walking, talking, self-dressing, etc., he receives a lot of assistance from specialists who teach him physical, gross motor, speech, and adaptive skills. Or shall I say — WE receive help with these things. You see, I am not trained to teach Everett how to learn these things best, but his specialists and teachers are. And along the way I’ve picked up a few parenting tips & nuggets of wisdom from these people. I frequently refer to these individuals as Everett’s therapists and teachers and MY “parent coaches.” Continue reading Confessions of a Rockin mom #17: Fears related therapies
For the first year of Everett’s life I spent a lot of time and emotion worrying about him. At night as I was falling asleep, I would worry. When I woke up, the worry would begin again. And I would worry and pray all the …
