Walking & Squatting

Daddy made this neat video.

Prenatal testing lies ...

or, at best, is incomplete. Before Olivia was born, we knew she was going to have Down syndrome.  That meant, of course, that she was going to be sweet, smiley and a perfect angel - right ?!?  What they didn't tell us was that she was also going to be afflicted with "being a 2 1/2 year old." How possibly could the testing fail to detect that and warn us !?!  Yesterday, we were darn close to getting kicked out of Babies'r'us and Toys'r'us for disturbing the peace. Yes, despite prenatal testing, we have a 2 1/2 year old.

We are investing in yellow caution tape to wrap around ourselves when we go out in public :-) You might want to buy stock in the companies that make the stuff.

- Daddy and Mommy

Early days of walking video

Helping our children in a tough world

I thought this was good advice in helping to prevent our children from becoming victims of sexual abuse.  We see that Olivia sets boundaries with people, yet people try to force us to make her break her boundaries. We have to put protecting Olivia above the feelings of others. Adults need to understand that helping Olivia to believe that she can protect herself for her whole lifetime begins now. Especially for a child with cognitive impairment who is going to have a hard time protecting herself.

Ironically, we also contradict ourselves at times by confusing our children or denying them the boundaries and safeguards we gave them for their protection. For example, we tell children it’s their body, yet we force them to hug and kiss a relative (yes, even their grandparents or aunts and uncles).  

Though this may be our cultural custom—to kiss and hug upon greeting or departing, it instills in children the idea that it’s their body but they have no rights and no boundaries when it comes to relatives. And since most children are abused by non-strangers, we are opening the door to possible abuse.

Instead of forcing the child to give hugs and kisses when they don’t wish to, explain to the adult that you are teaching your child to set boundaries for themselves and enlist their help. 

August Photos

This Summer has been eventful :-)  and so I have not had the opportunity to BLOG. 

 My dear husband moved his home office and moved my computer also this weekend and now my computer is where Olivia and I spend most of our time, so hopefully I can get a chance to BLOG now.

This Summer has seen Olivia maturing in so many ways.  Her speech has come along well as has her signing.  Although her significant hypotonia has her still not walking solo, her supported walking has come along well. She loves to walk holding one or both or our hands and will at times use her walker. She likes to free stand and can do it for longer and longer all the time.  Her Physical Therapist always encourages us that Olivia is doing great given her starting point.

Olivia's crawling is very very good and FAST!

Olivia loves building towers!

Olivia using her walker

Olivia using her crawling tunnel.  Not too interested in crawling into it yet.

Olivia gently getting herself off of her chair as opposed to her old method of diving off head first.

Olivia has finally made friends with her sandbox.  I have been working all summer getting her to use it.  She now loves sitting in it and playing.

Olivia loves her little pool in the backyard.  Both the sandbox and pool are from Grandma and Grandpa B

Oh!!! I really splashed water in my eyes that time! Olivia loves to splash!

Olivia has also finally accepted playing in the grass. Again, I had worked all summer on this.  So nice to see all of my hard work paying off in these outdoor activities.  I had feared that we were not going to make the progress I wanted to see with outdoor textures this summer.  But she is doing great!  Today she even ASKED to go outside and walk. She walks (with help) well on the patio and grass.

Lovin' the beautiful day and the beautiful blue sky in her backyard.

Love this Song

We use signing with Olivia and we have found it to be a wonderful communication tool given that children with Ds have delays in their speech. Olivia is beginning to attempt to say more and more words now, but she has been communicating beautifully with us via sign language for 16 months. We rarely have a temper tantrum from Olivia that is communication related (of course she is Two years old and we get the I WANT MY WAY tantrums).

Signing has given us a closer relationship with Olivia than we could ever have imagined. We get to see a side of her that we would not see otherwise. The other day she heard me comment that I thought her godmother had some pain in her knees. I said, that I think her knees HURT. Olivia immediately started signing HURT and SORRY. As in, I am sorry that her knees hurt. I know that Olivia may not have understood what we were talking about for real, but she is trying to be a part of our conversations and is truly paying attention to what we are saying.

Maybe raising Olivia has not been "easy", but it certainly has been VERY VERY VERY GOOD!

Enjoy the video! I love this song! It says just how we feel about being able to communicate so well with Olivia even though we have to use a lot of signing at this point.

Finally a post about Olivia

For any of my Blogger mom friends who have followed my blog, I apologize for my absence.  Things have been a bit crazy around here these past months.  I have been on Facebook, so if you want to friend me on FB let me know! I miss my blogger mom friends. I think of you and your kids often but have not been up and living in blogger world recently.

Some of you may remember that Olivia's ultrasound showed a heart defect that was not found at birth.  Olivia has been cleared of all heart defects and no longer sees a cardiologist.  Now I wonder (LOL) if the ultrasound was not picking up my husband's heart defect! My husband has passed out more frequently than the average person since childhood.  Recently I had to call 911 twice when he passed out.  He spent 7 days in the hospital and after a tilt table test, they diagnosed a heart birth defect! The good thing is that a pacemaker was implanted that same day and that should solve the problem!  Now many of you many recall that only dirt is older than me and my husband. We are indeed older parents,  so it was amazing to the doctor as well as us that at a ripe old age they found a birth defect.  For any of you who know too much about cardiology, the diagnosis was cardiac inhibitory neurocardiogenic syncope.  Basically in response to average daily stresses his BP and pulse would plummet and he would on occasions pass out from his heart stopping briefly.  The doctor said that my husband died for 10 seconds during the tilt table test, which of course leads to the standing joke that he died but got sent back.  We are very glad that he did get sent back!