Words

I feel like I need to take a minute to say THANK YOU to all of you who have been reading my little blog here.  {I have been a little busy lately...I will write about that soon}.  It is humbling to be out and about and hear such nice things from those of you who have been touched by a post in some way.  I'm glad you feel like it is helping you with your own kids...and can you believe it's being read in the USA, Spain, Germany and now Canada?  I can't!?  There is a world map on my dashboard page for the blog and the countries are lit up.  My middle daughter asked me if I was trying to be like "Dr.Two Brains" (from Word Girl on channel 12) and dominate the world...um, kind of?  LOL
So from the bottom of my heart, thank you.  I hope I keep writing things that make sense.
Okay, back to work...

Spread the word to END the word...we have seen that campaign in the news lately {The Transcript}, and I wanted to share a personal story about the little superstar in the newspaper photo.  I definitely don't want her to ever hear that word...

I remember meeting these super sweet parents in the Lab Preschool at the University of Delaware {when we were located in Allison Hall on campus}.  Their daughter happened to have Down Syndrome.  No biggie.  She was going to be in my youngest daughters Pre-K class.  We all became fast friends. 

Over the years we had plenty of birthdays and fun times, and finally we made it to one of the Buddy Walks for DS awareness.  If you are unfamiliar with the Buddy Walk, it is a huge party where kids who have DS have teams of chanting fans, and you try to impress the judges with the best cheer, best showing, or best whatever they decide.  It raises money for families who have kids with DS, and offers them services they might not have otherwise.  It's just a great day of fun for every kid there. 

The energy at the walk was like something I can't really describe in words~just very positive, happy, joy-filled...the kind of energy that gives you tears and goosebumps in a good way.  My kids had a blast, and after plenty of time in the bouncy house, we packed it up and headed home.  In the car the girls all said they had fun, they were tired.....but the one thing that stopped me in my tracks was when they started asking why Kayla got this big parade?  She was, of course, on a float for God's sake, and we all wore t-shirts {designed by her talented mother} with her name on them.  What was the big deal about her, they wanted to know {in a nice way...}?  What did she do to get this recognition, and how on earth could they pull it off too, to get this kind of treatment? 

I didn't expect that question. 

I had to take a minute to give a thoughtful, and truthful response.  I said that Kayla was very special, just like all of us are special and different from one another, and we celebrated Kayla having something called Down Syndrome.  They responded with something like, 'Oh, okay', and left it at that.  No biggie.

When we got home, my oldest wanted more information about this 'Down Syndrome' thing {she was in first grade, but if you know her, she was born as an adult...I can't explain it}.  So, because we are visual learners {and because I can be nerdy},  I took her to the computer, and showed her the karyotype {the image of chromosomes} for DS and I told her that because of that third chromosome on the spot labeled "21", it meant that Kayla had 'Down Syndrome' {I should add Trisomy 21 does not make up all cases of DS, but I was talking to a first grader, so I kept it short and sweet}.  I told her most of us only have two copies of that chromosome, she had three, and that's all that made her 'different'.  Her response I'm sure was something adorable, {I have kept journals, you know...don't make me go through them all and look it up....and yes, this convo is somewhere amongst thousands of pages}.......but it ended up with something like, 'Wow, that's it?  And she got a PARADE?'.

Um, yeah, she did.  No biggie, right?

I love that they didn't know what was different about 'little miss'.  I love that it never mattered to them before, and it doesn't now.  If we teach kids that we are all different in many ways, then we're really all the same~ aren't we?  We need a little more of that in the world, for sure.

Have a great day!

PS~her parents blogs are listed to the side of this post....check them out.  They do tons for parents whose children 'happen to have DS'.

{Jenn}