Game of Thrones

One of the most amazing things about parenthood is watching your children reach milestones. We cherish the memories of those first words, first steps, first lost tooth, first day of school, and first Monty Python quote. Some of these milestones are less fun; first heart break, first broken bone, first time they are denied C-list celebrity status during a rose ceremony.  Full disclosure, we're not certain how the Bachelor works. Do you become famousish in exchange for your dignity? Don't answer that.

Most of these milestones happen whether we want them to or not. The milestones that depend on our judgement are trickier. I'm speaking of course of the first time you send your child into a public restroom by themselves.

Hi

There are many possible dangers on a child's first solo flight; creeps, weirdos, orcs, and the scariest of all... user error. I remember one horror story of a little boy who returned to his mother after his first time going to the loo a la carte.  He could not wait to tell his mother about the "really cool sinks they have in there!"

Pictured Above...Not a Sink

 The mother of the above mentioned child rushed him into the ladies room as quickly as possible to give his hands a thorough washing.

My first attempt was not more successful. I won't mention where we were located as I fear judgement about dietary choices.  Lets just say that a play area and golden arches were involved. I was outnumbered that day. I mean, we are always out numbered but one half of us was grocery shopping while the other half kept an eye on 4/5ths of our offspring (the last 1/5th is in college and has long since mastered the art of unaccompanied toilet use). So it was 4 to 1. In case you needed help with the math.

The boys demanded use of the facilities with all the grace and subtlety one would expect from two 5 years old with a full bladders. We had only just arrived and I had not yet settled the ladies. In a moment that would soon prove the saying regarding hindsight being 20/20, I sent the lads forward and told them I'd be right there.

In the few moments the boys were alone disaster struck. I will leave which one did this out of the text here so as to not ruin any future presidential bids. To his credit, he was sitting in a toilet; just not one designed for the function he was using it for.

Pictured Above...Not For Poop

The boy had already completed the transaction by the time I'd arrived. Being the responsible individual I am, the manager was informed ASAP.  He was very gracious considering my youngling had besmirched his latrine.

After this experience it was determined that the boys would be supervised during visits to the water closet for the time being. Unfortunately, I am still typically outnumbered 2 to 1. This combined with how excited the boys are to be getting taller means that on a few occasions, the lads have misjudged the height of their equipment as it relates to height of the lip of the urinal.
 
I assume that these miscalculations are common place and due to this I will never understand how every 5 year old boy does not have chlamydia.

After multiple occurrences I have began to take advantage of a little thing called male privilege. Or in other words, allowing the boys to pee in parking lots.  We won't be able to get away with this for much longer as the lads are starting kindergarten soon.  They are going to have to get used to fact that the world is not their toilet.  It was a goodish strategy while it lasted.

Cheers

L&Pee


 

Why do you ask?

As most of you know I have an 11 year old daughter with Down syndrome.  She brings tons of joy and laughter to our lives, but she is by no means "very loving" or "really sweet" she is her own person with likes and dislikes and mood swings, orneriness, silliness and sweetness. I really don't believe she falls into any generalization about persons with Down syndrome.  She has had many health problems including two open heart surgeries and one closed heart surgery, diaphragmatic hernia repair, and too many other surgeries to count, several hospitalizations due to pneumonia's and other infections.  It is most likely that due to these surgeries and other illnesses she is more developmentally delayed than she would have been had she not experienced so many illnesses.  It often feels like my life is largely devoted to keeping her healthy. She also has, what we like to refer to as a "side" of autism.  She is largely non-verbal, but she uses a device to help her communicate, knows a few signs and has vocabulary of about 100 words, but her receptive language is expansive. 

I adore her.  I would not want my life to be any other way.  She is perfect.  I would choose her again and again.  My love for her is as deep and complex as it is for my other "typical" children.

What I find totally fascinating is that I am constantly asked if I knew she had Down syndrome before she was born.  The answer is YES, I did know.  I was 11 weeks pregnant when I learned I was expecting.  When I had an ultrasound to see how far along I was, the ultrasound tech detected thickening on the back of her neck which would indicate a chromosomal abnormality.  I then had an early amniocentesis which clearly identified her chromosomal abnormality as Trisomy 21, meaning she had an extra 21st chromosome.   I was devastated. I did a lot of grieving.  I felt like I would never be able to live a "normal" life again.  I did not want to be different than everyone else.  But as I pondered all of the families I knew, I realized that all of us are different in some way.  Some families have children with ADHD, Autism or drug addiction.  Very few of us are able to know what our children face before they are born.  So for me, continuing the pregnancy was a no brainer. She was my BABY, and I already loved her and wanted to protect her.

In the months leading up to her delivery, I did lots of grieving.  I also did lots of research.  I knew through a fetal echocaridogram that she would need open heart surgery by the time she was 3 months old.  I learned that kids with Down syndrome benefit from early intervention and lots of stimulation.  I prepared my life to welcome this new baby into our family.  I had friends who agreed with my decision to continue my pregnancy and I lost a few friends who thought it was cruel to bring her into the world.  For me the decision was deeply personal, not something I thought anyone else had the right to weigh in on. 

By the time Maggie was born I had prepared myself in every way I knew.  When she arrived, I was shocked by was her perfection!  She was so beautiful with a head full of silvery hair and wise blue eyes that could melt your heart.  I had done most of my grieving prior to her arrival and was able to rejoice in her flawlessness. I was able to open my heart to her and begin the battle for her survival.
So the answer is yes, I knew.  That is the beginning of Maggie’s story and my journey as her mom.  She is a blessing, as all children are.  She is zany, and I mean zany.  My life is filled to the brim with adventure.  She challenges me to be a better mother and a better person.
Please feel free to ask me questions about Down syndrome, I love to answer them.  In many ways she is different than many children, but her similarities are many as well.

This is Maggie. She has had an AV canal repair at 11 weeks, and Mitral valve repair at 3 years old, and a vascular ring repair at 9. She is quite a little character!

Of Fatherhood & Life Lessons

I am a scientifically minded individual.  So, one of my favorite things about watching my one year old explore the world is watching her constant experimentation with her environment.  Of the ongoing experiments that she and all children are constantly performing is how to best gain parental attention.  Differentiating between positive or negative attention is still a ways off.  Right now she's just happy to get a reaction.  Not unlike an open mic comic making jokes about rape just to get a reaction, any reaction, from the crowd.

As I watch her learn to navigate the difference between positive and negative attention I am discovering that I am learning something too.  There are a few things about parenthood that no one ever told me about.
The sleep deprivation is something everyone knows about.  That one was no shocker.  Realizing that you are becoming the jerk that assaults others with pictures of your offspring is another one that I was not stunned by.  I already flirt with narcissism so of course I capitalize on any chance to flaunt my brood.
Finally, becoming an under appreciated and under compensated taxi service.  This one hits particularly hard as it is something that I remember my parents utter frequently.

Although they never went 88 Miles per hour

 I would like to share one thing that was never shared with me about parenthood that I would like to give you reader a fair heads up about.  Prior to spawning, keep this little bit of knowledge in mind.

YOUR CHILD IS ACTIVELY WORKING AGAINST YOU ACHIEVING EVEN THE SIMPLEST OF TASKS AT ALL TIMES

Think your going to have a sip of water? Think again dickhead, you've got a baby in your arms and she doesn't take to kindly to you hydrating.

Where you considering trying to pay a bill over the phone to a company with voice recognition software?  Well unless that programmer installed a filter that blocks out the sound of WHAAAAAAAAAA! then your shit out of luck friend.

Did you think you were going to try your hand blogging?  Oh you dumb bastard!  Try baring your soul online after she rips a few keys off the keyboard!

  Alas poor Qwerty, I knew him Horatio

 I don't want to it sound like I dislike any of my children.  They are the light of my life.  Seriously.  I just wish I had been given a heads up about this particular detail so that I could have better prepared myself.
Rationally I know that the reason that I am getting these behaviors is the aforementioned quest for parental attention without the guiding light of experience to shepard her in appropriate attention seeking.  However knowing this does little to alleviate the frustration  of failing to evacuate my bowels in a comfortable an uninterrupted manner.  I don't feel like I'm really illustrating the experience yet.

 Do you remember the scene in Ghost when Patrick Swayze is on the subway and he runs into that other ghost that can touch stuff. The tall weird looking guy that was always known for playing the tall weird looking guy. 

Get off my train!

Yeah, him.

Remember how everyone is just sitting on the train minding their own damn business when the Ghost of Chimo's past starts knocking shit out of people's hands and throwing a big damn ghost tantrum?

It's pretty much like that except that you know good and well who is pulling all of the newly folded laundry out of the laundry basket, knocking over all the coffee, and eating all the pennies.

As a side note, do you know what the only thing worse that having to dig through the contents of soiled diapers for a week in search of a freshly pooped penny is? Not finding that penny.

Again, I love my kids, I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world.  

In closing I would like to say that when we first began this blog it was to discuss much of the chaos of our daily lives coupled with some of our more benign ramblings.  Think of your reading experience here as a trip to the pool.  Sometimes you just may want to frolic in the shallow end, other days you may want to dive into the deep end.  We have not had much opportunity go to the deep end yet, consider this dipping our toes into that end of the pool.  We will usually shoot for about 1000 words per blog but since we came up short this week, we are including a short video to illustrate the issue discussed.

 L&P