Our Big Walker, Talker & Drummer

Try and Check out this Post from another Blogger the other day. I thought it was right up my alley.

The Mom Squawk Blog


He loves walking!

You say blink, he Blinks! This usually cracks perfect strangers up!

It's so funny how every single morning, my husband HAS to be the first one to get Jaden out of his crib. I let him do it because he relishes these first few minutes alone with his First and only son. What makes it funny, is my daughter, (7-1/2) also wants to be the first one to hold him and take him out of the crib. She usually wakes up earlier than Jaden because of School, Jaden usually decides to roll out of bed around 7 or so. So this morning, Jaden slept in a little later than usual and everyone was anxious to wake him up, hold him, smell him, kiss him etc. My husband and daughter were crawling out of their skins to get him up, so I told them both, "I Hear Jaden, He's Up!" (I was kidding), they both almost dropped their cereal bowls and ran upstairs to get him, pushing each other out of the way, and then both came down stairs Lyla saying "Mommmm, why did you say that? He's not up." My husband was laughing because he knows why I did it. They are both the same, ARIES! They have to be first at everything, and have WAYYYY tooo much energy all of the time!

His Favorite Activity Forever, The Drums! And Let me Tell you, He's pretty Good!

Did I mention how I never think of Jaden as having a disability in anyway? I may have mentioned this, but this Is what I tell everyone. He isn't Disabled! He is perfect. In fact, his thing now is, he repeats EVERYTHING you say! Everything, you say, cow, he says cow, you say doggy, he says doggy, etc! He recognizes everything now also! Mind you, he just turned 2 on Dec. 16. This is definitely not what Doctors tell you when they give you the "GRIM" diagnosis with sorrow in their voices. He puts 2 words together now, and is babbling those long sentences with all the inflections, the way toddlers do when they're trying to get their point across. I remember when my daughter went through this faze. It was so funny trying to get her to say things because they always came out different. My favorite with her was "say Hi Gorgeous", she would say "hi, go go", Or "Hold you, hold you", or "schsucshi" for Sushi...These are the words you never forget. As my son is now Enunciating all of these sounds, which is why he evaluated at his age level for speech, it is funny for him to move his mouth and tongue all around to make the sounds. Especially "g" and "C" sounds. He opens his mouth all the way up and almost like your clearing your throat will say "oggggy, ogggy," for doggy, "cat" he really exaggerates! When he says "baby", he says "aaahhh, baby" like I say it. He thinks his talking is hysterical too, he cracks himself up and laughs very loud the more excited we get!

See, what I mean, He get's Crazy! He has super good rhythm!

Very entertaining this kid, very entertaining! His other new thing is Singing. He loves singing. I'll say "Sing" and he starts going "laaaaaaaa, laaaa, laaaa, laaaa" up and down with his voice. I'll hold my hands like a conductor and when I go up with my hands, his voice goes up, when my hands go down, his voice goes down. It's so funny. Another trick that gets friends and family cracking up! This kid is definitely an entertainer, and he looooves the attention!

Jaden Is A Pro Walker

Well as you can see from the pictures below, Jaden is really becoming the Pro Walker now! Obviously we are extremely proud of this, considering we thought he would be walking a year ago! These were kind of unrealistic expectations considering children with Down Syndrome typically walk between 18 months and 5 years. Of course we never thought our kid would fall into any of these time restraints, especially because he took his first steps alone when he was 1! We thought he would be the first kid ever with Down Syndrome to walk at a year! And quite frankly, he probably would have been, however this is not what happened. When children have Low Muscle Tone, there's no telling when their bodies are going to allow them to do anything, and this is something that we've had to learn! Of course, he's known this all along, he was just waiting for us to figure it out too!

Well, at 2 yr's of age, he is finally, independently walking all over the place, and happily I might add! We've been stuck at the stage between Independent walking and walking around furniture, between furniture, holding hands, running with holding hands etc. for about 1 year now! It's SOOOOOOO exciting to see our little guy, whose wanted to be walking for a long time now, actually doing it! I remember when I started reading all the educational books on Down Syndrome after he was born, and all of the Time Frames they give you for Milestones that they will eventually achieve. I remember thinking, he'll never take Thaaaaat long to do this or that! Well, it's funny how your mind matures, isn't it? We still get stuck in all of these old ideals of when someone or how someone should be doing something, when really we need to worry about ourselves! Lesson's I'm learning now, that's for sure. By the way, the bib isn't for Drool, he had just finished eating!






Here's an interesting thing that happened to me the other day, and I would love to share it.

The other day at Jaden's (2yrs) PT apt. (we go 3 times a week for 1/2 hour), another mom was coming in as we were leaving. She had a super cute, huge baby and started talking to me as we were about to walk out the door. I could tell she wanted someone to talk to, so I stayed a little longer. She started telling me all about her son and why he was there, he had a Stroke 3 weeks after birth.

She said he was born with a Huge Hematoma, that he was 9 lbs at birth, (she, being tiny) then said that she knew she should have had a C-section. The dr's told here that it would take a few weeks for the big bump on her son's head to go down and not to worry. Well, she was so surprised when after only a few days, it had gone completely away considering how huge it had been. 3 weeks later he suffered a stroke, and is now partially paralyzed on the right side, with some other minor problems. He just started sitting, but isn't crawling or moving around yet. You would never know any of this from looking at him though. Very smiley and seemed happy. She then asked me what was "wrong" with Jaden, I told her his Diagnosis. She then asked me, like most other mom's, the next question which is "Did you know when you were pregnant?", "Did you have an amnio?" I said "no and no". I then said we would never have had an abortion anyway because all of the prenatal screening and ultrasounds showed a perfectly healthy developing baby. She then told me that between this son, and her older son, she had been pregnant and had an aborted that baby at 16 weeks because the Nuchal Fold Translucency Test told her that the baby would have learning disabilities. (HUM, I wondered to myself..What kind of test tells a mother that the child will have learning disabilities? I've never heard of that test) I only know about the tests that tell you a specific Risk Factor for This Diagnosis or That Diagnosis.

I was wondering what she was keeping a secret, but didn't ask what had they really told her?. She then told me her husband had wanted to keep the baby anyway, but she didn't want to have a child who was going to be made fun of, or be a burden to the family. She was extremely open with me about all of this, especially considering I didn't know her at all. Anyway, she then said she had no regrets, and commented that doesn't God work in Mysterious ways. Her next child was given to her, and then is the very embodiment of what she had feared the most! I then told her that her fears were all legitimate, and that every parent who has a child with any diagnosis usually goes through all the same sort of feelings. I told her this: that Jaden turned me from a One Dimensional Parent into a Three Dimensional Parent. Because I now know that Life is filled with Loving, Accepting, Thoughtful people who embrace people like Jaden. I told her that my fears of people staring at him or making fun of him have all gone away. I told her that it is quite the opposite, everywhere we go, people come up and want to kiss him, hug him, talk to him, tell us how blessed we are, how cute he is, how smart he is, and then tell their personal stories of someone they may know with Down syndrome and all the wonderful accomplishments this person has made. I said to her that Jaden to us, isn't Disabled in any way shape or form and to be honest, we don't consider ourselves parents of a Special Needs or Disabled Child. He is so "Typical and Normal" that we don't think about the label. Jaden, meanwhile was talking, and smiling to her the whole time. Blowing kisses to her and waving bye bye, because he was losing his patience with us talking. She then commented that he is SOOOOO Cute! It was an eye-opening conversation and one that shows us that there are so many mom's out there afraid of the unknown, when our fear of the unknown, is always worse than the reality!

The lessons we all need to learn are so numerous, however, Jaden continues to be one of the most Blessed Lessons of My Life! Feel free to pass this on to any other mother out there who may need to hear these words!

How To Encourage Walking With A Late Walker

Pictures of Our New Living Room! Lovely Isn't it!?



So, Since our son Jaden has Down Syndrome, this Diagnosis obviously means certain things will Probably Happen within the Growth and Development of his Life. Luckily for him, he has avoided so many of the "Certainties" associated with Down Syndrome, but has not been able to escape others. Such as, Lower Muscle Tone. Now, many kids who don't have Specific Diagnosis' have Low Muscle Tone, however if you have THREE 21st Chromosomes, you are most certainly going to be afflicted with this. Again, lucky for Jaden, his Low Muscle tone isn't So Low, however he has had some delays with Gross Motor Skills. For Example, he first sat at 6 months, by himself, but got up to sitting without help at 8 months, first really crawled/creeped (on all 4's) at 10 months, but funny enough was standing holding on at 10 months also. His legs have always been slightly stronger than his upper body. So we were holding his hands and he has been walking/running with help since about 11 months. We thought he'd be the FIRST EVER Recorded case in history of a Kid with Down Syndrome Walking by ONE!!! He even took his first actual steps alone at 12 months, however his walking hasn't progressed as fast as we would have thought it would. Considering all his therapists have always been astonished with his progress, strength, and amazing congnition! They have always considered Jaden the "Super Star" with DS. Walking being a HUGE MILESTONE in Down Syndrome can take many, many months to accomplish, it just needs to "click", and when they're 100% ready, (not mom and dad), they will!

Funny how all of us parents have the Best kid isn't it?! The thing with Jaden that I never would have expected is, he's so "normal" and "typical". He understands Everything, speaks many words, (he just turned 2 Dec. 16th), and is so independent. He Loves Music and Reading! He's funny, great sense of humor, goes with the flow, we can take him anywhere, and do! We've always taken our kids everywhere, partly because we don't have a babysitter and mostly because we want to. We even take him to movies with us, which he loves, and always seems to laugh at the right parts. I could go on and on with all of his accomplishments, because they are so numerous, in fact we have never considered ourselves to have a child with a "disability" because frankly, we still don't see it! Don't all kids have strength's and weaknesses anyway? My Non Chromosomally enhanced daughter, has her own strength's and weaknesses also. If you look around your own family you quickly realize we are all flawed, yet within our own flaws are complete perfection!

Anyway, in getting our son to Really Walk consistently instead of walking then crawling, etc. we have set up a sort of obstacle course in our living room to encourage him more. Our Physical Therapist suggested putting furniture closer together so that the nearest object didn't seem to far off in the distance. He wasn't feeling secure enough to let go of the furniture because the next closest piece would be so far off in the distance! Makes perfect sense to me! Great advice our Therapists always give us, I tell you, the kind of advice where we want to slap ourselves for not thinking of it sooner. So with a little re-arranging, we did, just that. And sure enough, he's walking all over the living room now! Unbelievable! Here's a picture of Jaden doing just that! If you're in the same boat with a "late" walker, maybe you could try this!