Christmas Ornaments and Nazi Whorehouses, Redemption Part 2

(The last entry, Part 1, was seriously exhausting to my little brain. 

So most of this one is other people's words)

(No profound insights in Part 2, if in fact
there were any in Part 1. Mostly quotes.
I will share that there is a ... physical and  mental 
health crisis for a family member (not Matt or boys) that is
currently occupying a lot of brain-space). 

[[  Part 2  ]]

I love thinking about the various forms of redeem, redemption, etc. In a recent phone conversation, my maternal aunt shared with me a letter her father had written to her mother from France, during World War 2. My grandfather (Loyce, he died before I was born) wrote that his unit was being housed at some chateau (which, he explained, "means castle" :) ), that before the American soldiers were there,  had been used by the Nazis as a whorehouse. The kiddos were listening when I related this story to Matt so I used the phrase "house of ill repute" though I followed it with clarification that my Grandpa Loyce had likely never used that term, he just used the, ah, colloquialism. Which is probably not a word he knew either.

Ice T is my Co-Pilot [Redemption, Part One]

(Okay, so this is actually the 100th post but it was an honest mistake - 

there were a couple of "drafts" clogging up the count)

[[ Part 1 ]]

Last weekend Matt & I sent the boys to their grandparents' for a night, so we could enjoy a kid-free night. On the way home from the meeting point, we listened to Ed Kilbourne's CD Promised Land; Kilbourne describes himself as a "folk theologian." Matt had purchased the CD just a few days before, after hearing Kilbourne perform at a clergy retreat he attended (not "perform" like a big concert, just to the folks in the room). Some of the songs are kind of ... sentimental (I was going to say "sappy" but Matt as always says it better) ... but others are fairly humorous, poking fun at aging and 'kids do the darndest things' situations. Then there's one song, "Promised Land," that is amazing. I hesitate to use the word "powerful" to describe it because that's so cliched, but I was slightly in tears when it was over.

The first verse of the song describes the life and death (from AIDS) of a young gay man, phrased as a query to God, does God care when gay men and lesbians are beaten and killed and lonely and die horrible deaths from AIDS, in the framework of the strong belief that sexual orientation is inborn, not chosen, and if you're born that way then obviously God makes you that way and does he worry about what he's created? Matt said Ed explained later this verse is about someone he knew, his young daughters' gymnastics instructor.

Pigs and Guns and Knocking out Down Syndrome

This past Monday was David's Transition Meeting with the county school system, to write his first IEP for his transition from Early Intervention to the school system when he reaches age 3, next Thursday. I have attended a number of IEP meetings as a social worker, and most of those meetings were about teenagers with behavioral issues in addition to their learning disability, and none of those meetings were as positive as this one. David's EI speech therapist and case manager were there, as well as the speech therapist, psychologist, and special educator from the school system. The special educator will take on the same kind of general role that his Community-Based Rehabilitation Specialist has had under EI - she will basically just play with him, doing some motor skills development, some speech therapy, a little bit of everything. We discussed the outcome of everyone's evaluations, and spent a lot of time on general David Admiration and Adoration.

100 - 100 - 100 - 100 - 100 - 100 - 100 - 100

This is my 100th post and it's going to be awesome. This blog was pretty slow to get started, slow to grow, mostly because I was slow to actually use it and was clueless about any ways to really promote it. But in the past 6 months I've gotten as many page views as in the previous 12 months combined, so I guess it's starting to get out there.

Thanks so much to everyone who has read this page, either faithfully, occasionally, or if this is your first visit. I have been reviewing my first blog-type entries, on David's CaringBridge page. The first few entries were written in May of 2010, when David had been really critically ill with back-to-back infections in the NICU. There was one night in particular that we were convinced he was not going to live. Then came the open-heart surgery and the really difficult few months that followed. And holy smokes, here he is now: he will turn 3 in one week, he's 32" tall and weighs about 25 lbs. He knows some signs and a few words, all his medical conditions are stable/managed, and he's doing beautifully in full-day daycare.

 

 

Okay that's enough of that

Last week I had a mini-freakout after discovering this blog: LisaMorguess, and reading some of her ... blistering ... reviews of other books by parents of kids with Down syndrome, most notably Bloom and A Good and Perfect Gift. I hated to criticize the entire blog without reading more of it, so I only freaked out about the book reviews, and admitted my perspective was skewed as the possible future recipient of one of these reviews.

Various Photo Updates

I think Simon's using David's
foot to push out his loose tooth?

They were so much fun,
wrestling and snuggling. :)

Eek.

I am suddenly terrified about writing this book. In my Internet search for ideas for my presentation to Simon's class on World Down Syndrome Day, I came across this blog (which contained notes/photos/info from her own presentation to an elementary-school class). I just found it and I'm compelled to keep reading it because her short "About Me" section says:  "I'm a wife and a mother to seven kids. I'm a reader, a writer, and an advocate, a woman, a feminist, and an atheist. What you see is what you get: no bullshit." 

And, I may be hoping she never hears about my book. You know, once it's written. And published. And people read it. You know what I mean, right?

Her review of Kelle Hampton's Bloom.

Her review of Amy Julia Becker's A Good and Perfect Gift.