The Purpose of this Blog

The goal of this blog is to provide education and bring about higher awareness about Down syndrome. It is to share that life with Down syndrome (DS) is not scary, horrible, or to be feared.

My experience comes from raising my daughter, Nebraska Larae (Braska), born November 2006 with Down syndrome.
The posts on this blog are related in some way to life with DS or disability, and they are reposted here from my other family blogs. There are links to those blogs in the margin on the right side of this blog if you would like to visit them directly.

Thank you for coming by.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

One seriously long day

I can't even fathom going through the details right now, but I need to for good record keeping. It will have to wait. I left the house at 8:03am and returned home at 7:05 pm. And I don't live 3 hours away anymore!! These days usually go so smoothly...but the honeymoon is over. This will be the last day we do the full day of visits. We moved here to be close, so we'll not do more than 2 or maybe 3 on the same day from here on out.

Today's accomplishments:
ENT--Check
DS specialist--Check
Cardiology--Check
Echocardiogram--Check
Eye center--Check
GI--Check
Audiology--Check
Lab--Check

Braska did marvelously, with some understandable rough spots. But she was great overall. And thank God that my mother-in-law came along... what a day.

Details later, probably on Braska's blog in the next few days. Ahhh! And I still haven't talked about our good day yesterday... I'll get there. Sometime soon.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Rested... for now

We've had a rough couple nights. Braska's birthday party went well. I'll get to that later, but soon I hope. But last night, Braska went to bed at 8pm (quite early, and without full feeds for the day) and I hit the pillow at about 8:45pm. M came in then too, because none of us have had good regular sleep for a bit. He was out in 2 seconds. I laid there til about 10 before falling asleep, but still. I expected Braska to wake up super early since it was an early to bed, but she slept til just after 7:15am and I slept till right around then. Not a bad deal. I'm up with visions of grandeur for things to accomplish today... we'll see.

Tomorrow is a crazy busy day, 7 appointments at Children's DS Center and various specialists, from 8:45am til about 4pm. Thank goodness for my mother-in-law coming along to help occupy and be extra hands through the day!

Monday, November 3, 2008

November is here

Fair warning...I'm not all that "with it" so who knows if this will be cohesive or not.

October went fast. I didn't get the whole post-every-day thing, but I did get in 31 total. Does that count for 31 for 21? I'm not going to stress over it, for sure. I did enjoy all the updates from all of you. But there were a few times when I felt posts were below par for my goals with this space. Not the end of the world, of course, but still...

November's going to be a busy one too. Tomorrow's the big day. Election day. I've already voted, thankfully, so that's nice. I can't tell you how happy I will be to not see another campaign ad of any kind. I've been praying often about this whole thing for months. No, that doesn't mean, "God, please don't let him win." That's not it at all. It means asking for peace and patience, as well as understanding that often history shows that nations are given what they ask for, even if it is not what is best overall. Sometimes that means we'll hurt for a while before we realize what is truly important. As a country, this could be a tough time. Honestly, it could be tough with either party winning. My hope is above all that we will realize that we are each accountable for our actions and choices. We live in a great country! And that is one thing, I don't have any desire to *change.*

After election day, we'll be looking toward our 8th wedding anniversary, my sister Julia's 13th birthday, my parents' 38th anniversary, Braska's 2nd birthday, a full day of appointments at Children's (7 hours, 7 appointments, one day), and finally Thanksgiving. Throw in 12 therapy appointments, 2 playgroups, 2 more dr appointments, and a smattering of other things on the calendar and we'll be busy.

It's getting overwhelming, I admit. I haven't felt well lately. It may just be the difference in pregnancies from one to the other. It probably has to do with having Braska around to play with, carry, deal with, and keep happy when I'd rather be napping. It's not some big problem, but it is interfering with life as I'd hoped it would be at this point in this pregnancy. I'm tempted to thin out our schedule a little just to keep caught up better, but I don't know if that would help or not. I go to the OB today for a regular check in. I'll let her know what's up, and she'll probably tell me it's just the way it is. But I'm just disappointed that I generally spend most of the day every day feeling tired and very achy. It's nothing that can't be dealt with, but it's still sometimes frustrating.

But time is flying, so we'll soon be to the next overwhelming stage of dealing with two kids out here in the open! Somehow, we'll figure it out. For now, I'll nap and rest when I can. I just miss having energy and actually *wanting* to do things outside the house.

So can someone go do some fun stuff and let me live vicariously through your experience?? Make it a good month, people!!