What a Month

It seems like this month has been nonstop.

Laura has been the girl on the go. She was accepted to The Rise School. This is an amazing program for kids with Down Syndrome. The program was started at the University of Alabama. The goal of the school, in Houston, is to equip children with Down Syndrome to be able to be mainstreamed through the public school system. The school in Houston also accepts nonDown's kids (usually siblings) as a way to help spread awareness and acceptance of people with Down Syndrome. I would highly recommend that you sign your child up as soon as you can, if there is a school in your area. Just check The Rise School web site to see if there is one close to you.

Most importantly, Laura turned one year old this month. She is fortunate, in that she got to have 2 parties. Her first one was a pool party at G.E.O. and G.C.'s house. She loves to swim, and had a blast playing in the pool with the other kids (from her class at school plus a couple of other Down's babies at Second). She had a black out cupcake that she got to smear all over herself. I believe a new chocolate addiction was born. The most fun part of the party was when she was done unwrapping all of her presents, she just played and played with the tissue paper. She had us all laughing. That in turn got her laughing, and playing more. That had us laughing even more. You can see where this is going. She slept hard that night.

Her second party was at school. Here she really made a mess of herself. She had icing all over her and everything she could get her hands on. She looks so very pleased with herself. She got Tara good with her icing covered hands.

We just fond out what we will have to pay to have Laura enrolled in The Rise School. It is much less than what we have to pay to have her at Second with Tara. It is still steep for us, but God has provided so much already. We are placing our faith in Him that the money will come from somewhere. Fortunately, we are blessed with a family that completely loves our daughter, and want the best for her. Between us all we should be able to figure something out.

She has had a virus the last few days. I stayed home with her yesterday and we had a blast. We played with some of her new toys, that she got for her birthday. She loves the music table that her Granny gave her. She sat in her chair (G.C. & G.E.O. gave her that one) and we read a story. She is a good reader, and is adamant about helping turn the page.

Tara and I think she may have sung her first song the other day. She has been stringing various one syllable sounds together for a while to form "sentences". Well the other day her sentence had several variations in the tone. This was a first. We have known for a while that she likes music, but to hear her do this was just to cool. We got all excited. Unfortunately, we could not get her to do it again. It is becoming more and more clear that we have an artist on our hands.

Now, I really am not sure what to do. Laura is my daughter. I do not know how to raise a daughter. Not the foggiest clue. I tend to follow Tara's lead. She knows more about girls than I do. Additionally, Laura may have an artistic bent? How do I raise and encourage and artist. Man I am glad I am married to Tara.

The Down Syndrome Association of Houston (DSAH) has scheduled this years Buddy Walk. It will be on November 6th at 1:00 pm. The walk is free this year to anyone who wants to come on out. Laura's Lions team should be signed up by the end of the day. This event is designed to help raise awareness for Down Syndrome in the greater Houston area. The funds raised directly sponsor all the classes, seminars, various events and the community outreach programs that DSAH does through out the year. Basically the money raised by this event goes right back into our community. So please give early and give often.

I normally hate commercials. You can ask Tara, they are probably as close as I will get to something being able to be described as "The Bane of my Existence". I will do anything to get out of having to watch one. So the other day I saw one that actually caught my attention. It was a Pepsi Refresh commercial for a group called the The Sparkle Effect. This is a group that helps schools create inclusion of all students through cheer leading teams. The girls, and the featured team, were just incredible. All I can say is that Pepsi got something right. I can only hope that the public schools Laura attends have kids like these girls in them.