Baby Hulk ~ Happy Birthday (in photos)

good morning birthday boy!

ready to tour Olympia

then the tour ended abruptly when he face planted off of the step

tofu and rice for dinner

poor baby nose!

the problem with baby led weaning, no smashing, only sensible eating

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BABY HULK!!!

Baby Hulk ~ Happy Birthday!

It’s hard to believe it has been a whole year since I first looked into the eyes of my new baby and instantly knew he was different. I knew my life had been forever changed. I’d had my life all mapped out since middle school. I would have 3 children by the time I was 30, a boy and two girls, I would be a young cool mom, not one of those cool moms who provided their children with booze or anything, but still the cool mom. Well clearly my plans took a detour after Mr. Grey when baby number two, Lumpy, ended up having a penis.  I mourned the life I had planned and moved on, not the girl I had hoped for but the detour ended up not in the least bit unpleasant and we were still headed in the same direction to being our big happy family! The next time I thought not finding out the sex of baby number 3 would make it easier when I ended up with a third boy, girl or boy I would be fine.  I had learned that the sex of my child didn’t really have much of an effect on my plans anyways, and by now the thought of a girl kind of scared me. Then my plans took an even bigger and completely unexpected detour.

Forget the third penis, this baby had a third 21^st chromosome! I mourned big time what I thought was the biggest detour possible.  This was a detour onto some abandoned highway in the dark, full of bumps and potholes that I couldn’t even see coming, and totally in the opposite direction from where I had planned. I was right. But it wasn’t a bad thing! These bumps and potholes have forced me to slow down.  Because of Baby Hulk I have slowed down. I am better able to appreciate things. Baby Hulk has made me realize I can’t stop things from happening. I have always had issues with anxiety, but I have embraced that my life now is very different and I have adjusted. I was afraid of all the doctors appointments.  Just calling and making appointments usually stresses me out horribly. But now it is just something I have to do! Then I was afraid to go to the appointments knowing they could bring to light something terrifying. In the first year of his life he had to have two ultrasounds of his heart to check for defects, we checked his thyroid three times, he had a hip ultrasound to check for hip dysplasia, two visits to the ophthalmologist to check his vision and look for things like cataracts, or a misalignment of his eyes.  I’ve taken him in needlessly quite a few times for colds (thanks to two big brothers in school) and had them look at me like I am crazy because my “soooo congested” baby’s oxygen levels are at 100%. Then there were the few times I did take him in for something more, like an ear infection, pink eye, and croup. The ear infection got scary when the doctor saw the petechia on his nose (from him crying) and sent us straight to the lab for a CBC, I didn’t understand why he wanted us to do that until about an hour after I got home. I finally put things together, the doctor had called the spots a rash, one of the signs of leukemia is a rash. I managed to freak myself out for about 5 minutes and then noticed I had missed a phone call. I checked my voicemail; it was the pediatrician telling me the lab results came back normal.

Things could change, bad things can happen but life is always like that. Baby Hulk has taught me more and more that you just can’t dwell on things, the negatives, and the what-ifs. You have to live in the here and now.  My baby is healthy. It is as simple as that! His physical therapist says he is the highest functioning baby with Down syndrome she has ever worked with. The unknown is now so exciting to me! I wonder what could happen today. What new and amazing thing will my baby do?

Thinking back on when he was born I am actually thankful for the experience we had. Sure there are things I wish had been different, maybe if I had found out ahead of time I could have had time to come to terms with my new life before he arrived. That way I could have just looked into those eyes and felt that instant love instead of my stomach falling through the floor and utter despair, then maybe I would have been able to avoid the guilt I felt for NOT being able to experience that. For feeling fear instead of love when I first looked into his eyes. Luckily those feelings have passed too, now my negative feelings are more about silly things, like the fact that in all the chaos of his birth no one did his foot prints. I don’t have anything to look at and say, ‘look how tiny his feet were!’ When I realized a month later that I didn’t have them, I of course made some of my own but he was bigger by then, it just isn’t the same! But compared to other parents' experiences, ours was great. I’ve heard stories of people being told their baby will never talk or walk or be able do anything for themselves, or the parents who had a prenatal diagnosis, and within the same breath of informing the parents their baby had Down syndrome, their doctor asked when they would like to schedule termination. And of course these babies have grown and gone on to do amazing things.

No one ever told us Baby Hulk wouldn’t be able to do things. I think they just said that he may experience some delays in areas but there isn’t a way to just look at a baby with Down syndrome and say, “oh this one won’t do much," and yet people do it anyways. Someone in the special care nursery at the hospital even found an employee of the hospital who had an older son with Down syndrome to come in and talk to us. I don’t think it did much to help, I was really in a fog for the first couple of weeks of his life, but it was a wonderful gesture and I think it did help Darling Husband. I am so hard headed I probably would have taken someone telling me he couldn’t do certain things as a challenge. Oh yeah? Watch this! I kind of feel like one of those crazy pageant moms as it is. I have changed so much of my life for this little boy. Weekly visits to the physical therapist, weekly home visits with Early Intervention. Because of them I am looking so much more into other things, like buying toys, instead of, oh this toy’s music isn’t too annoying, or this toy is fun colours, I think, how could Baby Hulk benefit from this toy developmentally? Just last week I totally rearranged the living room so he could get to the couch because he wanted to pull up on things. My living room does not look as good, the coffee table is beside the couch instead of in front of it so I can’t put my feet up anymore but as soon as I did it Baby Hulk was crawling across the living room and pulling up on the couch, and 4 days later he is already trying to let go and stand alone!

This year has been so exciting and different, and rewarding. Baby Hulk has slowed us down and opened our eyes to this great big adventure. He challenges us to do better and be better. While I am sad he is growing up so fast, I can’t wait to see where he will go! Happy 1^st Birthday to my Baby Hulk.

Baby Hulk ~ My Baby Ate Cat Puke

How I felt when I realised what had happened

Yup. You read that right. My baby ate cat vomit. I. I just. I don't even... Let's start from the beginning:

Today Lumpy had a special guest come to his school. The Reptile Man. This guy comes in with bins of snakes, turtles, and even a gator. It was really neat. It was after Lumpy's actual school time right at lunch. Other smarter moms brought lunches for their kids. I didn't even think about it what with the fact that I am a horrible mother as this post already implies. Lumpy got to take fun pictures with some of reptiles so he was begging to see them all the way home. I told him I would put them on my computer and we would look at them after lunch.

Lunch was made, Lumpy scarfed his down and went to watch Mighty Machines.  I was still feeding Baby Hulk. Lumpy ran in to inform me the cat had puked. I groaned and told him I would clean it up when Baby Hulk was done since I couldn't exactly leave him alone while he was eating. So 15 minutes later Baby Hulk is finally finished and I have totally forgotten about the puke. I cleaned him up and got him dressed because he has to eat in the nude or all of his clothes would be ruined, even with a bib. I sit him down with his toys, hand him two toy plates to bang and go sit down on my couch to pull up the pictures for Lumpy. Then I look up, Baby Hulk is sitting next to the vacuum cleaner, what is that bright orange thing next to him... Then it hits me. I run over hoping I am wrong. My cat is bulimic. She gorges and then barfs. It was a pile of only partially chewed soggy cat food. Maybe he hasn't seen it. He looks clean.... he looks up at me and smiles his big open mouth smile..... there are chunks.... chunks of orange... in his mouth!!!! I snatch him up and run to the kitchen. I think I performed some sort of water torture on him and I actually stuck his mouth under the running faucet. I stuck my fingers in and made sure all particles were washed out. I took off his now soaking clothes and sat him down on the kitchen floor where I could see him and went and cleaned up the puke. While I was cleaning Baby Hulk barfed on the floor. I ran in and looked at the green puddle. I saw no orange chunks. I wiped it up and smelled it... yup... I smelled my baby's barf. Smelled just like lunch. No cat food smell at all. I'm really hoping he just got it in his mouth and didn't actually swallow. Just to be safe I forced him to nurse. Breast milk is magic, I just hope some of it's magical properties work on cat vomit in baby mouths.

It was possibly the most horrifying thing that has ever happened to me. I wanted to cry and vomit at the same time.  Not Baby Hulk! He kept his gummy grin on his face. Even while I essentially waterboarded him. On another note... I think this means my baby is not longer a vegetarian. Why couldn't he have done it with dog food like both of his big brothers?

Baby Hulk ~ He Is MOBILE!!!

I've been calling it "thunking". Kick kick, thunk, kick kick, thunk. I know he is on the move because I can hear him thunking. I don't know how it doesn't hurt, or why he isn't vomiting since he is essentially giving himself the Heimlich over and over, but it works for him and...
I'm. In. TROUBLE.

Baby Hulk ~ Down Syndrome Awareness Month

October is probably one of my favourite months. It means Halloween! And Autumn and usually Steamcon (there seem to be complications with this year's 3 day weekend at Steamcon for the Hot Toddies). This October will be my first time celebrating it as Down syndrome awareness month though! I don't know what to do! I want to make a dress or something! I know I made a skirt for the  day (3/21) but I need to do something more for the month I feel like... but what?

Baby Hulk decided to celebrate! He kicked off the celebrations by getting his first ear infection! What? Why? I mean I know it is a common thing for kids with Down syndrome but really, Baby Hulk, there are better ways to celebrate! Last Thursday I noticed my baby was a bit needier than normal. He did not want to be left alone. He would grump when I set him down to go to the bathroom or whatever. But then Friday he woke up and just cried and cried and cried. He had no fever but I knew this wasn't right. He cried himself to sleep on the way to drop his brothers off to school and then woke up when we got there and then cried himself back to sleep on the way home. I called and cancelled our visit with Early Intervention (a new weekly home visit for us)  and called the doctor's office and made the earliest appointment available. 1pm. Luckily Baby Hulk slept until 11:30 and he seemed to be in a little better of a mood when we got home. Only an hour to kill before we had to leave and it was spent on lunch. I am so glad I went with my gut feeling that something was wrong and took him in. I hated that my baby was in pain.

The next day was the Buddy Walk and while he wasn't his usual super smiley self he was doing a lot better thanks to some strawberry flavoured mold. We had a wonderful time. Darling Husband's friends, Cole Trickle, and Dortz, came out and brought their drift cars and all the kids out there were climbing in them and playing. It was great. Right before we started walking they had us get behind the sign for a picture... well I took Baby Hulk out of the mei tai so I could turn him around and it wouldn't just be the back of his head... well... he had other ideas! Time to nurse! So we didn't get in the picture, and then he nursed to sleep! So he slept through the whole walk! Dortz was jealous. He is a very serious napper and could have used a nap about then.

Baby Hulk and Dortz

4 days after Baby Hulk finished his amoxacillan and he was sounding a little froggy and he woke up with a stuffy nose. He seemed his usual happy self so I wasn't too worried. That is until around 6pm when he woke up from a late nap crying. That was a little odd in itself. Baby Hulk wakes up pretty much the same way every time. Before he even opens his eyes he starts talking. Baby babbling for a minute or two before he opens his eyes. I really love it because I get to be in there and watch him wake up. Babies waking up is a super cute thing to watch and I really do go lay in there and stare at him while he babbles until he opens his eyes. Well this time he woke up crying. Darling Husband went in to get him and he still didn't stop crying. I went in and picked him up and his crying became honking! I freaked out. I got him calm and gave Darling Husband instructions on finishing cooking dinner and drove Baby Hulk to Urgent Care. We got in pretty quickly which was wonderful, but his oxygen levels of course were 100% by then somehow anyways. We sat in the room and waited for the doctor and I sat there thinking of ways to describe the sound he was making. It wasn't just weezing it was honking! Like a goose, or someone blowing into a clarinet too hard! Like too much air being forced through his windpipe and some weird vibration happening in it as a result. But he wasn't even crying that hard. I didn't get to use any of my awesome descriptions of course. In the end I just said it sounded like that baby in the whooping cough commercial but without the coughing. The doctor decided she wanted to give him a steroid, some pink cherry flavoured business in a syringe. Baby Hulk sucked it down like a champ and we went home. By the time we got home I could already tell it was working and we live like 5 minutes away. An hour later and he wasn't even snorting like he had been all day which is pretty typical for him when he has a cold or his allergies are bothering him. We had a follow-up appointment the next day and his pediatrician said it was croup! Honestly until a few years ago when my BFFs son had it for the first time I thought it was some old timey made up illness. I think of the little boy who had it on Anne of Green Gables! People don't really get croup anymore! Well, they do. And now Baby Hulk does. Luckily the steroids he had at Urgent Care should be enough to take care of it. Now it is back to just being a cold. The cool mist humidifier is going. I've got my saline drops and my super gross and awesome Comfy Nose snot sucker and we are kicking croup's butt!

Baby selfies in Urgent Care

 October is only half over and already it has been quite eventful! I hope it will start to calm down now. At least let it be a healthy rest of the month, PLEASE!

Baby Hulk ~ He Don't Need Yo Affirmation

     Lately I have been getting extra annoyed with the things people say to me about Baby Hulk or others with Down syndrome. It has taken a while to figure out why that it is. I have always gotten these comments so why is it bothering me so much now? There is the "God only gives special children to special people" (don't even get me started on that one!) and "Oh people with Down syndrome are always so happy" I have seen blog posts by other parents of kids with Down syndrome upset by all the things people say and I just finally realised why these things people say piss me off so badly. I figured it out shortly after I received some newspaper clippings about how scientists have figured out how to "turn off" the extra chromosome. Why do we need to fix my baby? He is fine. That's when I figured it out. It's like people feel the need to find some way to make things better, to make my baby's extra chromosome a positive thing. Sure in the beginning these comments were good. I was freaked out and upset and needed comforting but my child is 10 months old now! I'm over it and I love the crap out of that kid and he can kick your baby's ass any day! My baby is awesome and I don't need your positive spin on things, random stranger! I already know my baby is awesome. It would be like me coming up to you giving you a sideways, pitying smile and telling you, "Awe, all the blonde babies I know are always so agreeable!" ...yup... dumb.

     So please. I don't need you to try to make things better. My kid is awesome. It is nothing to be sad about.



     Baby Hulk is 10 months old now! He is soooo close to being mobile. He gets onto hands and knees and just bounces but still only goes backwards when he tries to crawl. He will travel across the living room backwards and often gets stuck under the coffee table. He claps too! Hooray! We are working on signing now. He doesn't sign back but understands some of the signs, like when I sign "mama milk" to nurse. He has signed milk a couple of times but I don't think he sees why he should have to when he knows I already know exactly what he wants. So if I sign, "milk" and try to get him to sign it back he just gets mad and screams at me as if to say, "Woman, you know what I want, now give me the boobies!" I am pretty sure he understands the sign for"no" too but what kid ever listens to that anyways?

     September 19th the South Puget Sound Up With Down Syndrome group had their first meeting after summer break and we finally decided it was time to see what they were all about. Darling Husband has gone to a couple of their board meetings to talk about his car event he put on but this was the first family friendly meeting for us. It was held at the Hands on Children's Museum. They brought pizza for everyone talked a little about the Buddy Walk that is coming up October 5th in Lacey, WA and then we all got to mingle and the kiddies played. I wasn't nervous to be going. Darling Husband kept asking me if I was. I really wasn't. Then we got there and I met a horribly tacky woman. Okay I never actually met her. I think she formed her opinion of me the moment she saw my LGBT Obama sticker on my car. She didn't look at me once. Just very loudly told her husband about the hilarious bumper sticker the other day that she totally forgot about (until she saw my bumper sticker of course)! "Ahoihoihoi (do that laugh in that hoity toity my feces have no odor kind of way) Oh honey, I saw the funniest bumper sticker the other day! It said Obama Bin Laden! Ahoihoihoi!!!" That tacky woman's poor husband looked soooo uncomfortable. Way to welcome the new people to the group, lady! To make matters worse with that semi racist comment, her son with Down syndrome is adopted... I know this because he is black.
     So we started on that note and then I was nervous! I really hadn't been before but then I realised the thing we all shared in common, the reason we were all meeting here was not going to be enough of a reason for some to be friendly and get along. I was on edge when we got to the room, it was back to reality and these were just people... I don't like people. They do what I was now doing, they judge. They see my blurple and pink afro and my kooky baby carrying ways and they make assumptions. I did the same. We had pizza, I honestly have no idea what that horrible woman did the rest of the night My slight terror of the whole thing kind of gave me tunnel vision and then I found families who were nice. After I made my assumptions I decided the people with the child in an ergo carrier were my people, they wear their kids in hip friendly carriers... Nope my thoughts of how things would go were wrong again. I need people to make the first move, they didn't so we never spoke. Another woman did engage me though. A woman who had somehow seen pictures of Baby Hulk in his hip helpers. I wanted to ask how she had seen pictures of him before but I didn't want her to feel like a creeper... I am a creeper myself so I personally don't think it is a bad thing but I know others do. I didn't want to call out her creeperness. She was nice but I think I was too young of a mom for her. When I told her how old I was she seemed to kind of backed off and started talking to another mom closer to her age. Oh well. Her loss I suppose. Baby Hulk and I spent the rest of the time hanging out on the floor playing with toys.

      I am glad we went though. I don't think I met any potential new BFFs but it was nice to meet the other families and also really nice to see how Lumpy and Mr. Grey interacted with the other kids. I already knew Lumpy would do fine since Tsunami is in his preschool class this year. He loves her and is always playing with her but I haven't ever seen Mr. Grey around another kid with Down syndrome. I was so happy to see him playing with one of the little boys there. He played nicer than usual even. He would hand balls to the little boy he was playing with so he could put it in the tube that sucks them up. He didn't even ask why the little boy had a tube in his nose or anything like I know I would have as a kid. He just played with him! All in all it was a good night.
     I can't wait for the Buddy Walk! Find your local Buddy Walk! If it hasn't happened already GO!

Baby Hulk ~ What Happened to August!?

I said I would keep up with my posts over the summer...I don't know what has happened to the month of August! School has begun and my first child is in kindergarten! WHAT!?

Lets see if I can catch you up.

August 1st. I had plans for a big post because it's the beginning of world breastfeeding month and  I got right to getting over my fear of nursing in public by doing it at 503mph in a jet plane flying across the US! Baby Hulk's first time on a plane! We flew all the way to the other Washington! Our nation's capital and an excellent place to go to remind you why it's good to be an America! My hippy tendencies sometimes make it so I lose sight in the good. We didn't get to tour much. We were there for a family reunion. I got to meet family I had never even met and see some I haven't seen in years.

When we got home from our trip suddenly Baby Hulk could sit up on his own! It was pretty shocking. Then he started rolling back to his back again! I can't believe he is 9 months old already!!!

 He has gotten really good at feeding himself. Still no teeth but that doesn't stop him!

 I brought up that he didn't seem to realise he has opposable thumbs to Annie and she gave me some things I could do to help so now he can even grab tiny food like Cheerios. Mr. Grey got in big trouble the other day when a lego somehow ended up on Baby Hulk's playmat and Darling Husband had to fish it out of his mouth.

Speaking of Darling Husband, his event, South Sound Summer Jam was excellent! Everyone loved it! Stitches posted a little about it. She was really excited about the drifting part of it. I'll make sure to bring her to some events next year when it starts back up again.  I was a little disappointed in the venue. The people at South Sound Speedway were pretty gross (on the inside). I noticed when we got there how rudely the people at the gate were being to participants as they arrived. And then they tried to take the money from admissions! This is a charity event! You are trying to steal from a charity!?  So there was that and then the matter of the poor sportsmanship in the Evo group. I've talked about the awesome caravan of Evos from Darling Husbands previous meet & show. This huge group of Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution owners meet up and then roll in together. None of them came. I have no idea why but I really find it hard to believe that ALL of them were busy. I don't know if they were protesting the drifting or what., but this was the first of this new event and he is one person. There was still the car show, he can't cater to everyone!  Once again it was CHARITY though! Not just some meet where they get together and park their cars in a parking lot and take pictures for the hell of it. It was for a cause. If you can't tell that really steamed my broccoli. I really thought they were a cool group before but now they just seem kind of high school to me.** Despite their lack of support and the sliminess of the speedway Darling Husband still raised $6,850! I am so proud of him. I can't wait to see what he comes up with next year!

And now for some sad news. Baby Hulk has pink eye! Poor baby!

 

When we woke up yesterday to get Mr. Grey ready for his first day of school I noticed it was a little watery, then at the school it started getting goopy and he fussed when I tried to clean it. By the time we left the school it was getting red and suddenly there was a big glob of green goop. I thought I would get a nice day to relax but ended up spending the morning at the doctor's. His eye drops are working splendidly already, and I discovered a new trick to keeping up with them.

 4 times a day for 5 days, this way I can keep up!

August is over. The rain has started to sneak back in and the temperatures are dropping. I am ready for fall. I am ready to send the big kids to school, curl up on the couch with my sweet baby and enjoy the silence. Or the baby babbling, whichever one it is.




**these are my personal observations and not those of Darling Husband