A New Monday

yes, those are snow boots on her feet :)

CHEETOS!

Trying to grind those sharp teeth down by eating rocks

That is a "D" it just looks like an "O" Not too bad, huh? Now we need to work on scaling it down to the size of a piece of paper :)

We are back to our routine!!! We almost didn't have to leave the house at all today, BUT then our on going battle with trying to get Sophia's reflux medicine refilled forced us to go out to CVS and I am just praying that all this headache we've been through these past 2-3 weeks will pay off when I finally give her the medicine tomorrow and her reflux starts to get better again! It's amazing how the doctor's office, the pharmacy AND the insurance company can make something so simple so dang complicated!

We have been practicing our new feeding tips these past few days and they are way less stressful, for me and Sophia, at least so far. We are done with the baby food and we are moving up to age appropriate table foods. I've also realized over the past few days that Sophia seems to love her natural Cheetos. She eats the crap out of them, and does it all by herself :) with no need for scheming on my part.

Jayden has just added another toy to her growing Christmas list :\ There isn't a commercial that comes on TV that she doesn't want for Christmas. She may just have a very sad Christmas if she is expecting all of this stuff! Thank goodness Sophia could care less what she gets for Christmas this year, in fact thank goodness that she is still oblivious that there even is such a holiday yet :)

The girls and I played outside this afternoon, and Jayden wrote her name all by herself, several time, without any dot to dots from me! I was so proud of her!!! She just started writing and did fantastic. Of course I don't know if she could actually write it on paper yet, because she did it outside with chalk and it was HUGE :) She messed up the order of a few letters some times, which is weird because she knows how to spell her name, and she wrote her "D" and "E" backward a few times as well, but I'm proud of her regardless! While Jayden was busy writing, Sophia was busy trying to eat chalk, moon sand, bubbles, rocks and leaves! I finally had to put her in the wagon and walk her around because she was wearing me out!

Twelve more days until this years Buddy Walk!!!!! We are so excited and so happy to have an even bigger walking team this year! We greatly appreciate everyone who donated and who have decided to be a part of our team and walk with us, rain or shine :), on October 23rd! I also wanted to leave you with another Down syndrome fact for this month, since it is Down syndrome awareness month, so here it is: Children with Down syndrome have been included in regular academic classrooms in schools across the country, not all children must be placed in segregated special education programs. In some instances they are integrated into specific courses, while in other situations students are fully included in the regular classroom for all subjects. The current trend in education is for full inclusion in the social and educational life of the community. Increasingly, individuals with Down syndrome graduate from high school with regular diplomas, participate in post-secondary academic and college experiences and in some cases receive college degrees. I have no idea where Sophia will be when she enters into the education system, but I will not write her off and I hope that her educators won't either. Entering into the school system, when that time comes, is a little scary for me. I want the same things for Sophia that I want for Jayden and I just hope that when the time comes, Sophia is given all the same opportunities that her older sister will get, but I will cross THAT bridge when we get there. For now I am just enjoying singing her the ABC song and playing peek a boo and making her laugh so hard that she can barely control herself :)