31 for 21: A Day in the Life (5)

I was feeling a little stumped earlier on what I wanted to do for today's post.  I've been thinking a lot lately about how much easier this year 31 for 21  is than all of my previous years in the sense that we really don't think about  Down Syndrome that much around here.  Of course there are little things throughout the day that creep in that I think about or worries I may have, but even when I think about some of those things, they have nothing to do with Down Syndrome, but rather, the daily trials of raising two kids.  

The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to show that a day around here is really quite "normal" (normal being a loose word to use).  When Colin isn't eating well, I don't sit there and think to myself, "well, he has Down Syndrome..." or when potty training is abysmal at best I don't think, "since he has Down Syndrome...".  They are all just things that are part of OUR lives that we think about and worry about like any other parent would.  

That isn't to say it NEVER crosses my mind, but certainly not the same way it used to...

So, I present to you, a day in the life in our house...

After work, it's typically play time with the kids...

I just love the chaos that is CLEARLY evident in these videos...

Tonight I was on my own for dinner with the kids since Chris was working.  Dinner time can be hit or miss around here in terms of how happy the kids are.  They were all up for photo ops tonight though...

Since Kailey and I were eating lasagna, I decided to "try" to give Colin a taste just like the feeding therapist suggested the other day and he ate it, so we were all screaming and cheering like crazy.  

...and then he ate another piece, and another piece...

So of course, the next thing I had to do was get the bites onto camera which he was happy to oblige...

Just to show what I was giving him, I quickly took a picture of my plate, but while I was closing up the camera, the little stinky took my plate and continued to eat it!

Now, in case you don't have ANY idea what that means, it's so incredibly huge! Colin eats cottage cheese, yogurt, pudding and vanilla ice cream at the moment so we are trying REALLY hard to do whatever we need to do to improve on this (hence why we saw a feeding specialist again the other day).  I literally had tears in my eyes because I couldn't believe what he had just done (we celebrate the small stuff in a BIG way around here!).  

Dinner time abruptly ended when Colin no longer wanted to eat the lasagna (since the next piece I got was too cold for him...).  

Since Colin's pull up was wet, I ventured into the bathroom with him (another huge challenge we are working on) and he screamed and cried while going in there....

Then, all was well....

Starting to be not so well...

...we're getting there...

Let's throw a little cheesy excitement into the mix...

...and BAM! we're done!

oh! We slightly recovered....

More cheesiness to go along with the peeing excitement...

...And then, oops! We're breaking down again...

Really losing it because we're screaming at Kailey to get out...

She's not listening, so we scream louder...

Fish-eyeing the situation to see if she left yet...

Nope, we're headed into losing it again...

However, we recover in the excitement of flushing the toilet...

So, we try to brush teeth, and there's all kinds of dysfunction that surround the teeth brushing...

Trying to escape...

The happy brusher...

Fish-eyeing Kailey again...

Oh wait, ONE happy brush...

...annnndddd, we're done.

REALLY done now...

Mass failure...

The screaming escapee...

Chasing  me to be picked up...

Yelling "mom! Stop!"

The communication was GREAT here...

REALLY not having the pictures...

And despite all of that chaos, they settled down, read some books, watched their Fresh Beat Band, and went to bed smoothly without a peep....

See, it's really quite "normal" around here!