Baby Hulk ~ Toddler Group

     Arden was too excited about starting his first day of toddler group today. After 2 failed signs I finally spelled everything right and managed to get it to all fit on the third piece of construction paper. And then he wouldn't let me take pictures!

No time to hold signs! Lets go!

     We arrived at the church where Toddler Group is held. We were the first ones there and the office ladies didn't seem to know what was happening. As the office lady was about to take me back to the class I reminded her I was pretty sure I was suppose to sign in. I wonder if my being 5 minutes early threw her off because there was indeed a sign-in sheet right there on her desk and I had been told ahead of time I would need to sign in. I signed us in and she walked us down the hall where we ran into Teacher Barb! She greeted us, made us name tags, and showed me a cubby to put my bag in. Then we played in the classroom as the other toddlers showed up with their moms, and one "nana".
     Arden was the only toddler with Down syndrome in the group. I have to say I was a little disappointed. I would really like to be able to get to know some other kids his age with Down syndrome, but the local Up With Down Syndrome group is run by an older couple whose kids are all adults now so I just don't think they even think about how important that might be to others. There was one little boy who will be 3 soon, but I think everyone else was closer to Arden's age, though I am pretty sure he was still the youngest. There were 2 sets of twins out of 7 kids in the class! I wondered if they were just preemies and needed a little extra help. One of the sets of twins I had actually met before in my babywearing group! I am pretty sure the little girl has spina bifida. I thought I saw a scar on her lower back at one of the babywearing meetings, and she uses a walker and has leg braces. She also has the best little chuckle ever. Her twin brother is the sweetest little boy I think I have ever met. He just walked right up to me and wrapped his arms around my legs and laid his head on me while I was just standing there not even paying him any attention! The other set of twins will be 2 in a couple of weeks so I believe they were the closest in age to Arden. Their names were Jane and John and I couldn't help but giggle to myself and wonder if their last name was Doe. Arden played with the Doe's the most and really seemed to like their momma. She was fun and young and actually interacting and playing with all the kids not just her own.
     We played around the room for about 15 minutes and then Teacher Barb rang a bell. We cleaned up our toys and then all came to the middle of the floor and sat in a circle around a hula hoop. We sang songs and learned signs for parts of the songs. Then we played with a koosh ball in a toy frying pan. After that it was snack time. The kids all sat down at a crescent shaped table washed hands and passed out bowls and spoons. Teacher Barb sat across from them at the center of the table and dropped little dollops of apple sauce in their bowls as they ate and passed out pieces of graham crackers. Then she passed out cups and poured in about a tablespoon of water as they finished up eating. Jane Doe kept pouring her water into Arden's cup secretly and then asking for more. Only Arden and I seemed to be onto her sneaky ways.
     After snack we all went out into the hallways where there was a line of trikes against the wall. The children were all supposed to pick out a trike and ride down to the gym but in the chaos Arden ran ahead and followed Teacher Barb's helper with the basket of balls instead. Arden loved the big gym. It echoed and he ran around yelling the whole time he played enjoying the sound it made.

     Finally it was time to go back to the class. It was sand table time. Arden was the only one there who just couldn't refrain from throwing sand and dumping it on the floor so Teacher Barb stood behind him to encourage the not so messy kind of sand play for the remainder of the time. 

       Then it was time to go! We gathered around the hula hoop one more time and sang goodbye to everyone.

"Goodbye, Arden. Goodbye, Arden. Goodbye, Arden. It's time for you to go."

     It was a 2 hour class full of fun an excitement and Arden was totally exhausted by the time we got to the car. He was passed out before we were even halfway home and took a nice 2 hour nap.

     I am pretty excited to have this become part of our week! He had a blast and I had a pretty fun time watching him get to play with other kids his age. It has been hard filling the time when his big brothers are at school. I can only read him so many books and I'm no good at the crazy wrestling play he does with his brothers. This is one day a week I wont have to worry about boring him to death.

No more PT?

Yay! BACK TO SCHOOL!!!!!! The first day was Sept 3rd and I was sooooo ready for it! I still managed to get all emotional walking Ephraim up to the school for his first day of kindergarten. My nose got all itchy and everything (that's how we heartless people cry in case you didn't know)! But summer break is just WAY too long! We were all ready for a break from each other. Before we headed out to school  I took all the first day of school pictures of the big brothers. 

 Arden snuck into Nolan's shot looking like Chucky...

...So I was more than happy to oblige when Russell asked me to take pictures of Arden for his first day back to Physical Therapy today! Made him a sign and everything! He was pretty excited to get his own sign and knew exactly what he was supposed to do with it.

As we waited to check in for PT we ran into another mom with a 2 1/2 year old little boy with Down syndrome. He wasn't yet walking. I felt guilty telling her when she asked, that Arden wouldn't be two until November as he was excitedly running down the hall to go find his beloved room of fun. Ms. Annie was amazed by his progress and how strong he is. After she bragged about him to all the other therapists as they passed by, she told us she didn't need to see us anymore! Just a quick visit every couple of months so we can see how he is progressing! What!? I mean I know he is doing awesome and all that, but we love Ms. Annie! We missed our appointments over the summer!
     I guess, in the early intervention program, once they are established in walking they just send them on their way.
     Instead of PT Arden will be starting Toddler Group next Wednesday! Apparently it is kind of like preschool and sounds super fun.  I guess I'll be making a new "first day"sign! This feels more like a real first day of school anyways. I hope he loves it just as much as he loved PT.

I hope everyone had a great summer and hopefully now that I only have one child to entertain during the day I can get back to this blogging business!

Sleeping Russell ~ The Kicking Gecko

It has been a while since I have been able to get good enough material to post about Sleeping Russell. I suppose I could have posted about the baby black widows in the bed after an egg sack burst, but I just didn't feel like I could paint a good enough picture of Sleeping Russell bouncing around in the center of our bed in a Spiderman (coincidentally enough) type crouch, wild eyed and whisper yelling about "BABY SPIDERS EVERYWHERE!" ....Well... I suppose that wasn't too bad of a picture painted... I just wasn't feeling it at the time. I'm not really feeling it this time either but recently my Mom stopped over at the blog to read about Baby Hulk, but never actually got around to it because she got caught up in the tales of Sleeping Russell so for my Mom.

Last night...

Sleeping Russell says:
"It's kicking!"
"What is?" I say as I watch him fumble around with the sheets at the bottom of the bed.
"That lizard thing you're getting." he replies, sitting back on his elbows to look at me.
"What lizard thing?" sorry, you are mistaken sir. I am sooo not getting a lizard!
"You know, that one you're trying to catch, what is it... a gecko?"
"A gecko? And it's kicking?"
"Uh huh! ........MEOW!"

Okay Sleeping Russell... Okay...

Baby Hulk ~ Two Weeks

I wish you could see what I see.

I wish everyone could know Arden like I do. To me he is not a special needs child. He is only as different as his big brother Nolan, who knew his entire alphabet at age 2, is different from Ephraim, who at age 5 still cannot write his whole name (it is a tricky one).

For almost two weeks my sister-in-law visited with her family, and at one point at the beginning of her visit I realised, I think Arden is a special needs baby to her. I don't remember what it was that made me think that, maybe she seemed uncertain or overly cautious, maybe it was nothing at all, but it made me think that she saw that he was different. Suddenly it stuck me. All my friends and family I have, I see often. They have seen Arden and have interacted with him regularly since his birth. They see him the same as I do. He is just a little ball of cuteness with fat little starfish fingers and potato feet. He is our beautiful boy with pretty soft curls. His lovely sometimes grey, sometimes green, mostly brown eyes. He is our sometimes ginger. He is Baby Hulk. We know him and we see him.

I was sad to realise that she probably didn't see what I saw, but of course she didn't. She had only met him once before when he was about 3 months old! This is how the rest of the world who hasn't been lucky enough to interact with him on a regular basis, will see my amazing Baby Hulk.

Luckily we had two weeks. Two weeks for Arden to show a family that he was only as different as anyone else. He doesn't need special treatment. He can play rough and tumble with his cousin and brothers. He is sneaky! He will throw your caramel coloured carbonated sugar water all over the carpet and make you look bad (he actually got my tea today). He is fast and wild and just like any other little boy.

I wish everyone could spend two weeks with him. Two weeks to see what I see.

Two weeks, to see what she saw.

Babywearing ~ FWCC

I entered into a contest to "be a face for Calypso wraps." They wanted you to make a photo collage of the steps of an FWCC or a kangaroo carry. I went into it knowing in the end it would be a popularity contest, but I thought I would give it a shot! But then one person, who was in last place with 20something votes the first day, suddenly shot up to first overnight with over 400 I realised I was in over my head! I don't feel comfortable going further than my friends to ask for votes and apparently one person asked for votes in the big babywearing group of 28,000 members! And it wasn't even on a Spam Wednesday! But I love my entry and have decided to run with it. I want to make more!  I want to make them part of this blog! Starting with my competition entry! The Front Wrap Cross Carry or FWCC. And this way I can add written instructions as well!

Step 1- Find your middle marker and bring it to the center of your chest.
Step 2- Bring the ends around back and cross them making an X across your back.
Step 3- Bring the ends over your shoulders.
Step 4- Put your baby in the pocket you have, legs coming out the bottom (newborns can stay froggy if they prefer).
Step 5- Pull the back up to baby's shoulders.
Step 6- Create the seat pulling the fabric up between you and baby making sure it goes from knee to knee.
Step 7- Pull the ends coming over your shoulders strand by strand to get everything good and snug.
Step 8- Bring the end from your left shoulder across baby's back and under baby's left leg.
Step 9- Cross the other end over baby and under opposite leg.
Step 10- Secure ends by tying a square knot behind your back.

I hope I can find time, at least once a month, to make collages to show you different carries. I really enjoyed making these... okay... now that the contest is over... I totally didn't even make the collage my wonderful friend did. I just said "Oh yeah, I like that! Can you make that bigger? I love it!" Hopefully she loves me enough to help me take the pictures. Perhaps I can figure out the collage making on my own... perhaps...

Wait! Let Me Explain!

This blog was created so I could stop feeling like I had hijacked the blog  Hot Toddies of Washington   with posts about my chromasomally fancy son, Arden (aka: Baby Hulk). My lovelies, Buttons and Stitches had slowed down on their posting frequency and the blog was becoming nothing but Baby Hulk posts. The blog started as 3 lazy housewives and I turned it into a blog about Down syndrome! I took a few of my hair and makeup posts from the Hot Toddies blog and then I added a smaller side blog of mine documenting the shenanigans of my sleep-talking husband Russell (aka: Darling Husband. See what is happening here? With the pseudonyms it might get confusing if you go digging in old posts. There is also a Mr. Grey (my oldest son Nolan) and Lumpy (my middle son, Ephraim). So sorry for all the confusion.)
I am excited to add a section about babywearing, something I am pretty darn passionate about, and who knows what else will come of this! Wish me luck as I get this page up and running!

Corrie (the blogger formerly known as Pru)

Baby Hulk ~ Test Drive

Just in my last post I said Baby Hulk was his PT's first baby with Down syndrome who hasn't needed orthotics. Well, I spoke too soon because the very next week she brought them up. And then the next week she got out the box and tried some on him. Finally last week she brought out a pair and said she wanted him to try them out to see if they would do anything for him. He works his toes too much. He grips the ground with his little toes for balance and Ms. Annie wanted to see if she could stop that with some orthotics, forcing him to use his core more for balance. We brought them home and then promptly all caught the plague and died. Mr. Grey brought home some horrible stomach virus from school. Everyone was throwing up even poor Baby Hulk. The first time ever and I am sure he had no idea what was going on.

Poor thing :'(

So for almost the whole first week we had the orthotics, they sat in my bag untouched. I was a little unhappy with the whole idea of it anyways because we just bought Baby Hulk a new pair of shoes, and the orthotics didn't fit in them! I was going to have to buy him another pair of shoes just to try these orthotics. We weren't even sure he needed them! Finally, Sunday, 2 days before we saw Ms. Annie again I forced myself to feel well enough to go find a pair of shoes. We went to Target. We needed shoes that didn't have too thick of a sole. That is asking a lot out of boys shoes apparently. All shoes for boys past a size 3 must have 1 inch of sole. I was so mad I went the next aisle over and we tried on some hot pink patent leather mary janes... yup... I put my baby in girl shoes. And then I laughed put them back and left. We did a quick run into the Kohls next door and before I even got to the shoe section Baby Hulk had fallen asleep in my arms, there was nothing there anyways. We went home empty handed.


Monday Baby Hulk had his 15-18mo wellcheck and had to have 3 immunizations, one of them being DTaP. As an adult I have had it and could hardly raise my arm! The rest of the day he was dragging one leg a bit, he wouldn't bend it. I wasn't taking him shoe shopping again while he was limping around.

Tuesday morning a couple hours before PT we ran to another Target and success! A pair of cute cheap shoes that work with these blasted orthotics!

$12.99!!! (Darling Husband says this is how you take shoe pictures.)

He fell asleep on the way home and slept until it was time to go to see Ms. Annie. The orthotics went on and he went straight into his carseat! A week to try them out and this was his first time actually wearing them!

During PT he walked funny in them. His butt stuck out a lot and his feet were far apart, his toes turned in. He looked a bit like a duck. She tried to work with him trying to get him to tuck his butt and move his shins more over his feet but to do this she would grab his thighs. I had to remind her he had just had shots the day before when he cried out and then she felt bad and we pretty much played with bubbles the rest of our time there.

I'm not exactly happy about these orthotics. I hope he doesn't really need them. They are a lot of work to put on him and I have a bad habit of conveniently forgetting to do things I don't like to do. We will see how this week goes. He wore them for about 45 minutes yesterday. I haven't put them on him at all today. It is hard for me! We don't wear shoes in the house. Putting shoes on my baby just to hang around the house may take some getting used to.

So here's to hoping these abominations are unnecessary and we can go back to being awesome, and uninhibited by footwear. FREE THE FEET!!!