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

Baby Hulk ~ #Dadlife

     I entered Baby Hulk in a contest for Infantino. It's something NDSS is putting together with them called "Everybody Plays." One of the things they ask you to do in the form to enter the contest is describe how you teach self-acceptance and the acceptance of others within your family and/or in your community. Well I gave a little explanation about what I do in my family. Explaining to Mr. Grey that his long curly hair is not "girl hair" and that he may wear pink shoes if he wants to. And then for how I teach acceptance in the community I went straight to everything Darling Husband is doing. He asked me if I talked about the blog and I didn't! I totally forgot the one minuscule thing that I do because Darling Husband does so much!
     Since Baby Hulk was born, while were still living in the reindeer barn at the hospital. As soon as he had a moment to sit down after hearing our son might have Down syndrome he was doing research, contacting the people at NDSS. He jumped right in, while I was still spending my nights crying in the bath tub.
     In the 8 months of Baby Hulk's life he has done amazing things. If you read the blog before Baby Hulk you know Darling Husband is a parts guy for Nissan and Mitsubishi, and a pretty amazing one to boot. He works in the parts department in a Nissan dealership. Normally a person with this job would sell the typical replacement parts, oil filters, brake pads, boring stuff. Nope. He took that little parts department and made it into a top of the line performance shop. He sells special JDM parts, hard to find awesome parts. RACE CAR! He sponsors competitive drivers and played a big part in the beginning of a drift team. He takes a nothing job and turns it into something amazing. That's how he is. He doesn't just settle. So when he found out Baby Hulk had Down syndrome he did something about it. 
     For the past 3 years he has put on a Nissan and Mitsubishi car show here in Olympia, and he has always done it for a cause. The local Humane Society the first and second year, and then Fisher House last year. This year he has two charities benefiting from it and it is MUCH bigger. This year it is not just a car show. This year he went all out. He took it from the dealership parking lot to South Sound Speedway, where they will hold team drift competitions, an open drift, and a car show open to all makes and models. This year it is the South Sound Summer Jam!!!!
     The National Down Syndrome Society is the main charity for the event, but there are also over $10,000 worth of items to be raffled off, and 100% of the proceeds from the raffle are going to South Puget Sound Up With Down Syndrome. He has gotten SOOO many companies involved with this, donating raffle items and setting up booths, it is ridiculous! The local Parent to Parent group will have a table set up offering free screenings to families for kids under 3 years old. Even Stitches will be out there with her London Peach booth! There will be a kids' area with an Incredible Hulk bounce house and giant trikes so kids of all ages can play in the hopes that whole families will attend.  He even managed to get a sponsorship from a local radio station so his event has a commercial being aired on the radio!
     He made this all happen in less than 8 months and on top of that he has had time to have 21 21 21 decals made up that he sells on the side, and the proceeds from those also go to the Up With Down Syndrome group! I write a blog that only a handful of people read and Darling Husband is planning huge events and going to board meetings for the local groups and raising money!!! All while being an amazing husband and father. I just thought the guy needed a shout out for all the amazing things he has done for his son.

     The other day I was looking at Mr. Grey lying next to Baby Hulk, letting him play with his long curly, not girl hair and I said, more to myself than to them, "You boys look so much alike." Mr. Grey replied, "Almost except he has chromosomes and flat hair!" I was so pleased that chromosomes were just as casual a difference as curly or "flat" hair, an example of how I am doing my job teaching acceptance. That is what Darling Husband is trying to do in the community. And I am so proud of him.

Hair and Makeup ~ Trying Pravana

So I decided to try a new dye. A friend of mine uses it and her hair always turns out so nice! Mine does too but I have perfected the art of hair dying. If I were to go by the instructions on the jar my hair colour would only last a few washes where as when I do it my way I'm still getting compliments even when I've got two inches of new growth (I've actually been rocking the fro for a while now, too hot to flat iron so the poof covers the roots). If I assume my friend is going by the box with her dye, maybe with my method and her dye.... MY HAIR COULD RULE THE PLANET!!! That's what I thought at least. So I had to give it a try. The dye? Pravana Chromasilk VIVIDS. I just wanted to keep it my blue and pink. I mean I had a 212121 decal made for my car in my hair colour! I can't change it now! We match! So I got 2 tubes of blue and a tube of magenta! I have a confession to make... I've been getting lazy lately. I used to use the packets of Quick Blue as I recommended in my how to dye post a while ago but man... I don't wanna! I've been using... A BOX! Gasp! I've been using Clairol's Nice & Easy Born Blonde in Maxi. It doesn't work quite as well but it sure is easier on my hair and it gets it light enough for the colours I've been using.

So Darling Husband bleached my roots and I was ready to dye! This dye comes in a tube instead of a jar so I have to squeeze it out into a colour bowl and apply with a brush.

   

 It smells like a man. Like a hot sexy man. I miss the grape smell of my Punky dye. It is a lot thinner too. Like a light conditioner as opposed to the thick hair mask consistency of my Punky.

 I got it on, put a bag on my head and sat down with my Kindle in one hand and the hair dryer in the other and read and heat processed my bag head. Then I went to bed. Baby Hulk does not like bag head Momma. He kept giving me the bottom lip and looking at me like he was unsure of whether or not I could be trusted. So he was quite happy to see me the next morning after I rinsed it out. It took forever to rinse and I don't like to shampoo the first time after dying. It never runs clear with Punky either but I ended up doing a co-wash to try to get more out. Then I did my vinegar rinse to seal it and finished with the wonderful tube of conditioner that came with the bleach (why don't they sell that conditioner for real!? I love box dye conditioners!). The water that wouldn't run clear caused some run off dying of the blue in the pink so my magenta is a little ombre. So the roots are the proper magenta but the ends are purply.

I don't think I mind. I have a feeling it will look exciting if and when I finally brave the heat with my flat iron. Of course as I do with every new dye job I put on some extra fun makeup because without it I tend to freak out and think I have just made the most horrible mistake in the world.

  I went a little matchy matchy with the fuchsia colour the blue turned most of my magenta and that was when I decided it was truly and okay thing. Yep! I like it. I hope it fades as nicely as Punky does.

 I will do an update after a few washes to let you know how it holds up but right
 now it looks quite nice and Baby Hulk loves me again.


**Update**
I really hate the magenta. It faded sooo fast. I love the blue though. It has lasted well and is really pretty. I still see lots of blue run off when I wet my hair, and the pink is kind of a purply mauve because of it. My hair has a lot more shine to it, even in the faded magenta so I think it was good to my hair even though it faded. All in all I think it is great for your hair, but maybe not for more than one colour at a time, and pinks will need more frequent touch ups. Feel free to share your experiences with other colours in the comments since they seem to vary.

Baby Hulk ~ One Truth, One Tip, One Pic

 I've never done a blog hop before. I don't really understand them. Luckily I have my beloved Buttons! She walked me through what to do even though it was pretty well explained. I needed her assurance and I really wanted to do this one I found on another Down syndrome blog I follow, With A Little Moxie. It looked fun so I decided to make it happen.

One Truth: It's Just Parenting

     When Mr. Grey was born we had to stay in the hospital 3 days because I tested positive for Group B Strep. The morning after we were discharged they called us to tell us to bring him back in, his liver wasn't functioning properly yet.  Jaundice. We stayed in the hospital 3 more days until his biliruben levels were normal.
     When Lumpy was about a month old I noticed a bulge near his groin, it made weird squishy noises if I poked it. He had a weakness in his lower abdominal muscles and his intestines had slipped through. At 2 months old he had a surgery to repair his inguinal hernia.
     Then came Baby Hulk with his extra chromosome! I had really rough starts with ALL of my babies! After you get done being terrified for your baby it's just parenting. You trust your instincts and pick up on cues from your child. Whether they have 2 copies or 3 of the 21st chromosome. Making the best choices you can for them. I made the choice to send Mr Grey to preschool when he was four because he had serious personal space issues. I didn't do it so he could learn his letters and numbers. I did it so he could learn to interact with other kids. I sent 3 year old Lumpy to preschool because he still couldn't count past three! These are decisions I made for my children as a parent based on what I saw from them. I will send Baby Hulk to preschool too. When depends on what I see in him, same as his big brothers.

One Tip: Live in the Present

That was my biggest mistake in the beginning. I was so worried about what could be wrong or what could go wrong. I had a serious case of the "what if's". Right now is where we are and right now is what matters. It is 2013! Science is an amazing thing! Leukemia can be cured! By the time Baby Hulk is an age where we have to worry about Alzheimer there could very well be a cure for that! So let's not worry about it now!

One Picture:

I did it! What fun!