I can tell that life is starting to calm down again. I can hear the birds, the ironically soothing sound of lawn mowers, the chimes outside my window, the wind in the trees and my own thoughts in my head. For a while, in the midst of the recent chaos called Beauty and the Beast....(which now that that I think about it is a perfectly suited title: beautiful in the opportunity, experience and relationships that were formed, but oh, was it a beast) I would sit down at the computer and be lost for words, or even thoughts for that matter. But this morning when my son woke me up a little later than usual (at 6:30am instead of 5:30am) I actually had the energy to get out of bed. And all morning, thoughts have been swaming my head.
The first of these thought patterns were about how I have to confess that I am a material girl in a not-so-material world. I enjoy the fine luxuries of life that many in this town would think a little rediculous. I don't know many, if any in this town who would be able to spot a Kate Spade knock off from the real thing...or know who Kate Spade is at all. But thing is, is that it isn't just handbags. I pay way too much for facial cleanser, make-up, cheese, my kid's soap, shoes, and even dog food. I suppose it is because I follow the philosophy of why not have the best? Why feed my dog unnatural, biproduct based filler when he could have the best Natural Choice lamb and rice formula? But what of it? Is this good? bad? selfish? responsible? I put that to the void.
My other thought pattern was consumed by Ella's appointment with the Speech Language Pathologist....who is crazy I might add. She isn't really. She is actually very nice and great with Ella but gets very excited about...everything! And sometimes I wonder if all she does is schmooze parents to encourage them to continue being attentive to their children. She makes comments about how we are such exceptional parents in our observations and from what she can tell, from observing Ella, are doing everything right. I mean what else are you going to say to parents of a child who has very little expectations placed on them, if they can have any at all. Not to say that we don't have expectations for Ella. Quite the opposite actually - we have all the same expectations for Ella that we do for Jakob. I have even had other parents at the Down Syndrome clinic joke about how I am probably one of those parents with a milestone check list hung up in my kitchen...which is not far from the truth but beside the point. All this to say, Ella is doing great! She babbles, vocalizes and uses hand signals to communicate. All areas of therapy are related (fine motor skills, gross motor skills and speech) and so since Ella is doing well in physical areas, the speech therapist is excited about the upcoming development burst which apparently happens around 18 months.
Here are some things the Speech Therapist got excited about today...
-Ella can say "dada" with purpose.
-She has one tooth and in the right spot, (bottom front) might I add-Children with Down syndrome tend to get teeth late (as late as 18-24 months, in a random order and they are often mis-shaped - to be honest a lot of them look like they have hobbit teeth)
-She can support herself standing
-Is mobile (army crawl style)
-Plays with sound using her tongue, lips and different mouth shapes
-Attempts some hand gestures (more, hi, no, up)
-Recognizes at the very least 10 words
-plays peek-a-boo
-Is transitioning from full hand grasp to pincher graps (using thumb and pointer finger)
-Feeds herself and eats a variety of textures
-Is just the cutest, happiest, smiliest little baby on the face of the planet (aside from her nephew).
PS- as I was writing this, I was letting Ella "air-dry" on the floor and she totally pooed everywhere. Boooo!
And unfortunately, I was going to post some pics of Beauty and the Beast but for some reason Blogger does not want to do that for me today, so it will have to wait.
