Snow in April

It hardly ever snows in Washougal, but it snowed off and on all last week! Fortunately it managed to stay about 40 degrees and sunny during Kirk's baseball game, but the rest of the time it was snowy and/or rainy.



I'm not complaining, of course, because my mom will not hesitate to remind me that she still has an unmelted snowbank in her backyard from the many feet of snow that dropped on Klamath Falls since December. It's just that it really isn't supposed to do that here, and so snow causes quite a stir.



Personally, I'm more annoyed by the unrelenting wind that makes traveling across the I-205 bridge a bit of a roller coaster ride. It is unnerving to have to steer into the wind to keep the car from sailing off the opposite side of the bridge. But that is just what Suzanne and I did on Friday as we took a field trip to Lake Oswego to go to a DS Mom's Coffee and meet with a speech therapist. As it turns out, I'm doing several things right, which comes as a pleasant surprise to me. She had a nice handout, which talked about how we learn speech and the different ways to learn new words. Suzanne is picking up words more easily now, so now is the time for Greg and I to really work hard at it.



In fact, Suzanne's beloved Dancing With The Stars is helping with words and counting! Last night they were giving the scores for one of the dance couples and Carrie Ann said "Eight," then Len said "Nine" and then before Bruno could speak, Suzanne shouted "Ten!" Suzanne was more generous in her score than Bruno, because I think he only gave them an eight.



Poor Greg--he used to really like having a little snuggle time with Kirk when he was little. They would get on their jammies and get in bed to watch a little TV and I would find them both asleep. Soooo cute. He likes to do that with Suzanne, but she always outlasts him. When I go upstairs now, Greg is usually snoring away and Suzanne is either sitting up watching TV or roaming around. One time, I found her on the floor at the foot of the bed snuggled up with a pillow and one of her dad's shirts. Still awake, though. What is exceptionally funny is when this happens with the 3 of them. Then I will find Greg and Kirk asleep and Suzanne in the middle, wide awake. I am the only one in this house who can outlast her.


Gotta go and teach Kirk how to clean his bathroom. He wants to do chores to earn Wii games, so we'll see how long his enthusiasm last...

Progress...sort of

WARNING!

This post is going to be about poop. If you don't want to hear about it, then leave immediately. I realize that while this is a big deal to me, it is probably not a big deal to you, so here is fair warning...

I have the "Hunter Nose." It's kind of long and pointy (thanks, Dad) and consequently I have a good sense of smell. My nose leads me to many places and today it led me to my very own bedroom. I opened the door and there was my sweet, smiling Suzanne dressed in a pretty magenta top with nothing on the bottom. I asked her where her pants were and she said "all done." I was thrilled that she answered a question with actual words that I could understand. My joy at this was short-lived, however, once a bit of aroma begin to waft past my nostrils.

After a little bit of detective sniffing, I found both her pants and her pull-up (we've graduated to pull-ups) in the bathroom. Pants on the floor, poopy pull-up in the potty! She knows that poop goes in the potty, so she gets credit for that, but a partial demerit for including the pull-up in her total deposit. She has all the pieces, if only we could get them in the right order...


On a lighter note, it is baseball season again, which is really fun as long as it isn't raining. Our first game was on Friday and it was a balmy 65 degrees. Our next game probably won't be quite so nice as rain is in the forecast for Saturday. We'll just cross our fingers and hope for the best.

We had visit a couple of weeks ago from Max and Landon. It was great having Landon around and he and Suzanne really hit it off, but the best part was getting Kirk to play catch with Max. Kirk hasn't really wanted to work at baseball this year, and Max managed to light a fire under him. Kirk wants to really learn to pitch this year, just like his cousin Max and his Grandpa Frank, and he's really working hard now. Thanks, Max, you helped out more than you know!

Big sigh...I must go upstairs and put away all the clothes she took out of the drawers. She was using them to count with (good) but left them in the middle of the floor (bad).

A Good Life

Happy Easter! We had a lovely weekend taking the kids to an Easter Egg Hunt in Hathaway Park on the only sunny day this weekend. Kirk really embraces the competition and enjoys getting out there picking up eggs. Suzanne, on the other hand, couldn't care less about those pushy kids and (in some cases) their equally pushy parents. She picked up 5 eggs and was done. Then she trotted off to the playground where she spent the next hour going down the many slides and swinging on the swings.

Suzanne has a good life. She goes to school on the bus which gives her a little independence, she knows how to play with boys, she works her dad like a pro, she's friends with all the checkers at Safeway and all the parents at little league, she brings sunshine to everyone she meets. Suzanne excels in the important areas.

Which brings me to the reason I haven't blogged for a month. I've really been a tad angry over something I read. Maybe I'm a big dope, but never, NOT ONCE, did I ever contemplate terminating my pregnancy. I'm not noble--it simply didn't occur to me. Yes, I had a clue that Suzanne might be born with DS, but I really thought that the notion that you had an amniocentesis and based on the results, made a decision to have an abortion, was really old fashioned. I really didn't think that people did that anymore, but it seems that I was mistaken.

As it turns out, approximately 90% of fetuses with Down Syndrome are terminated. Yup, you read that right--90%. I read an article by an editorial writer for Salon magazine that talked about the decision he and his now ex-wife made to terminate her pregnancy after they discovered that the child would have DS. The reason they gave was that the child would never have a good quality of life. What a moron...

Okay, perhaps I should be a little more understanding about what parents go through and the agonizing decision they have to make, yadda yadda yadda. Sorry, no can do. The notion that DS kids and adults do not have any "quality of life" is so utterly ridiculous. Who defines "quality" anyway? Your life is what you make of it, and so is Suzanne's. One thing about Suzanne is her ability to get the maximum amount of fun out of everything she does. My job as a parent is to provide her with experiential opportunities and it is up to her to make the most of them.

According to this guy and many others, if you're not going to have a quality of life (as defined by him, I guess) then you should be whacked. That would be called eugenics, a practice that was popular in Nazi Germany. Okay, I'm not calling this guy a Nazi, but eugenics was a bad idea then and it is a bad idea now.

90%. Done ranting now...

Each year in communities around the country various DS organizations sponsor Buddy Walks. These are community walks to raise awareness and acceptance of people with Down Syndrome. If you would like to find out if there is a Buddy Walk in your area, please let me know.

Friends Don't Count Chromosomes...