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Saturday, November 10, 2012

Miss Lillian

Lillian had a lot of appointments this past week. I was the most nervous for her evaluation with Early Intervention. We found out that she's right where any other baby her age would be expected to be!

The therapists did a lot of cute little exercises with Lily. They played and sang and rolled around for about an hour. The only things Lillian is a little behind on are physical, which is good because those things are easier to teach. She did so good, that they're going to call me in two months to see if I even want them to come back.

I'm very thankful for the services that are available to children with disabilities here. Even if we don't need them right now, it was awesome to be able to find out that we don't need them! It's also great that they'll always be there if we have problems down the road.

I think that this just goes to show that it's best to treat everyone equally. Not too long ago, children with DS were thrown in nursing homes. People thought there wasn't anything we could do to help them, and so nothing was done. When I was researching DS after we found out Lillian had it, I kept coming across the new statistics that give these children a longer life expectancy, higher IQs, and a better quality of life. It isn't just because of research. My Lily has a chance at a normal life because we treat her like we would if she didn't have DS.

On that note, something pretty interesting popped up on my newsfeed.

http://www.sciencecodex.com/extra_chromosome_21_removed_from_down_syndrome_cell_line-101751

It's apparently sparking some controversy. Personally, I appreciate that they say they aren't proposing a "cure" for DS. This is simply a step forward to finding a treatment for certain things that come along with having Down Syndrome. What do you think about the study?

- Bethany

Sunday, November 4, 2012

What's a hurricane?

We don't get a lot of those where I'm from. Although I wasn't hit hard at all compared to other parts of the coast, it's kept us pretty busy this past week!

I was super prepared. I filled up the bathtub and every container I could find with water, made food that we wouldn't need to cook if the power went out, took down everything outside that could blow away, and waited to be in the dark for at least a day.

The power flickered and I thought that was the end to our fun night of WWE and snacks. False alarm.

The power went off and I KNEW it was staying off. False alarm.

The power went off and at this point we were tired of DirecTv restarting and taking forever and waiting for the internet to get back to where it was supposed to be.

That was it.

Our yard was a bit of a mess. The skirting of our mobile home was blown off in some spots. Our trash can blew away. The cute little solar lights are apart and scattered throughout the yard.

The worst part of this storm for me was working the weekend before it happened and the weekend that we got everything back in stock that everyone bought up in preparation for this storm. Some people are just crazy! All of my jobs have been in some sort of store, since I was 16. I have NEVER seen anything like I've witnessed these last two weekends.

Were you hit by Sandy? I guess I was. But she was all worn out before she got to me.

I hope everyone is keeping the rest of the east coast in their thoughts! I may not have been hit hard, but jeeeeez it was terrible in some places!

Bethany