Cute almost-three-year-old moments of the week

--"Mommy, did God gave you an Alex to chew on?"
(These kids do pick up on the littlest things we ever say! ;) )

--"Our Fadder, who art in Heaven, hawowed our, be, howowed be our name. Mommy, why do we say daily bread?"
(Because that's how we ask God for all the things we need. Like our food...)
"Like 'teak and peas and peaches and ah-keem and aca-oni keez?"
(Yes, like those. And a place to sleep, and clothes to wear, and...)
"And someone to wuv us!"
(I love being this kid's mommy. Sniff sniff.)

Small triumphs

This morning, Julianna grabbed a cloth napkin from the table beside her and proceeded to play peekaboo for 15 minutes.

A small triumph, to be sure, but a triumph nonetheless!

Trees and Trash

I just joined the Arbor Day Foundation.

Did you know you can get 10 trees for a max of $15? OK, so they're twigs. So what? Join them already! www.arborday.org Then you get other trees (not twigs) for next to nothing compared to going to the store--any store. I'm going to buy nine trees for less than the cost of two at Lowe's.

Did you know that the aspen tree actually grows in central Missouri? (According to Arbor Day, anyway.) I'm so pumped. It'll be like a little bit of Colorado in my back yard. Assuming I can keep them alive, of course. :)

I'm very excited about planting trees.

And this weekend Christian and I went down to the creek--which is nothing more glorious than a stormwater drain--and cleaned up trash behind our property. It was awful how much there was, really. Most of it washed downstream from the streets, but even so. And the other day, I was sitting in line at the traffic light when I actually *saw* someone open their door and drop a styrofoam cup on the ground.

Who are you people? And how can you go through your life without ever once thinking, "Duh, maybe this is not a good idea!"??????

Didn't your parents teach you better than that?

Alex and Mommy Basi

Alex and Mommy during flute (or voice) lessons!

Nuff said.

Pink Cake

My mother-in-law and I spent last evening decorating a "1-2-3-4" cake filled with chocolate and cream cheese and frosted with pink cream cheese frosting.

Today is the big day. Feb. 2. Groundhog day, or, for the Catholic nerds among us, The Feast of the Presentation. Julianna's first birthday.

She celebrated her birthday by waking at midnight (I kid you not) and whining. Since we got to bed at 11:30, I was not happy about it. Fortunately, by the time I used the bathroom and got ready to go over, she'd whined herself back to sleep. But she woke up again at 3:30, which is both worse and better than the time she's been waking up to nurse lately (4:30)--worse b/c I had only been asleep for 2 hours; better b/c it was early enough that I could still go back to sleep, which is not the case at 4:30.

We nursed, and I went back to bed. And a while later I heard Alex whining, and thank God, then I heard Christian already over there dealing with him. I was exhausted--since I've been getting up at 4:30 every morning for a week--so I just let him deal with it.

And now, at 7:30, Julianna is sitting on my lap, little cranky birthday girl with a cold.

And Tom over at narrowridge.blogspot.com wrote about his 5 month-old son's likes and dislikes. So I shall do the same.

(There's a whole community of people talking about Down syndrome over there, BTW. Very interesting. You should check it out.)

OK. Miss Julianna Margaret Basi LIKES...

Chewing on her toes
Blowing rasberries


Miss Julianna ADORES...

* Her Mardi gras beads
* Her big brother Alex
* Mommy and Daddy--especially Daddy! (You should see her go crazy when he walks in)
* Baths (though that was long in coming--I used to have to get in and bathe with her so she didn't freak out)
* Pears, peaches, and bananas
* Lasagna--which she goes berzerk about, and won't stop shrieking till I give her another bite
* Oh, and don't forget ICE CREAM!!!!

Miss Julianna HATES...

* being cold
* being put to bed
* oh yes, sleeping during the day. She hates that.
* having her face cleaned and her gooky eye wiped
* babysitters

At the moment she's griping b/c she's lying on the floor bored, and wants Mommy to feed her her birthday breakfast. In the last two weeks we've seen marked differences in her development. She's started reaching for things--taking initiative in interfacing with her world. She wants to touch faces, grab noses, lunge and grab toys. Things I had come to believe were going to have to be taught and just barely grasped before we went on to the next developmental task, which would also have to be taught, and which she would barely grasp. Yet here they are, and again, I just have to learn to be patient.

There have been times in the last year when I have been overwhelmed by all that is to come. And not that long ago I was quite sad, deep in the midst of grieving. No doubt I'll be there again, and sooner than I would like to think about. But for now, I'm just an ordinary mom who's in a bad mood b/c I haven't had a full night's sleep in over a week.

To those just starting the DS journey, or those struggling with frustration, fear or a sense of being overwhelmed...hang in there. It'll come.

In the Eye of the Beholder

In the Eye of the Beholder: a celebration of a year

“…no eye has ever seen any God but you doing such deeds for those who wait for him…”
Isaiah 64: 3

She’s so beautiful.

I have to be honest and admit that I have always, always been uncomfortable around people with disabilities. Afraid of their differences. For certain, I have never, ever thought of a person with a disability as beautiful. Clearly, this is one of the reasons God gave her to me.

And yet, as hard as I try—when I look at the folded ears, the wide, round eyes, the cute little tongue tip protruding—all the telltale signs that made the doctors suspect Down Syndrome at the moment of her birth… Well, I can’t see it. I have never really been able to see it.

But everybody else can see it. She and I stopped at a garage sale on Saturday (yes, in January), and the man came hurrying over to us and pressed an angel votive holder into her hands, telling me a story about a young man with DS that he helped to shave.

This is what I find really odd. I always thought I was pretty objective about things. I was and am, after all, able to admit that Julianna was not a pretty newborn AT ALL. And I really try hard to see the Down syndrome in her face—identify it, I mean, the way other people seem to be able to identify it in a glance.

But I can’t. She’s just…so…beautiful.

One of the benefits, and crosses, of having a child who’s significantly delayed is that we get an extended babyhood. She’s five days shy of a year old, and she’s more like a seven- to nine-month-old. At night when I nurse her to sleep, with her little fingers grasping my shirt, or my skin, and her feet pressing against my arm or my torso, I’m frequently overcome. That wild, fine hair, so impossible to control. The long, long eyelashes. The adorable, chewable cheeks. That little nose, that goofy grin! The length of her! Oh, my gosh, she’s so beautiful! And I thought Alex was the most beautiful baby in the world.

I mean, seriously. I know you all think you have the most beautiful children, but…I’m sorry, it’s just impossible. The world’s two most beautiful children both live under my roof. And how did I rate such a blessing?

She’s so beautiful. And she’s been with us almost a year. It’s been rough, and I wouldn’t have chosen it, and I wouldn’t choose it now, given the choice, but I also wouldn’t trade it. Not for anything.

Those moments

And then there are those moments when you shake your head in awe at the miniature people who fill your days with diapers, feedings and playtime.

The thing I love best about children is the way they laugh just because they're happy. Just because we're going to the park, or they like the food placed in front of them, or (in Julianna's case) because Mommy looked at her and smiled.

And I love the way that Alex claps his hands and says, "yay yay yay yay yay!" wiggling his bottom and his legs with excitement because I told him the phone call was from Daddy, who said he's landed in Chicago, which means he's halfway home.

"Did *we* ride two yearpanes" (that would be "airplanes") "in the 'ky, to New York?" Yes, we did, little man. Just a couple of months ago. Another giggle-wiggle: "I LOOOVE New York!"

But at the end of three days without Christian, I am filled with great sympathy and respect for single parents. I really don't know how they do it.

What do you know. Two blogs in one day.