How Has Your Morning Been?

I just received a text from Cxdy.  It read:  "How has your morning been?"

I was a little surprised at the honesty of my response because I always like to make everything seem easy and stress-free, and I've never been the type to complain about my children.  I love having children.  My response was:  "Taking care of babies and trying to find time for me.  How is yours?"

My response isn't necessarily negative, but I do feel like these days I can't get anything done that I might enjoy.  Right now I can't paint, I can barely find time to write in this blog, and by the time I can get dressed and out of my pajamas it is always almost lunch time.  I keep wondering how I'm going to ever get out of the house with two babies in tow (why did I not think of this several months back?), and I think I found my solution in a baby sling.  I can't wait for it to come in so I can escape this prison--with little ones, of course.

Think about it: How do you carry two babies into a store?  How do you fit two babies into one shopping cart?    How do you chase down the bigger baby while the smaller baby is in the shopping cart?  With the sling, Lukas can still sit in the shopping cart and Clara can snuggle warmly against me, which is her favorite place to be anyway.

Clara is a very bossy little girl, which I did not expect.  I kept reading comments from experienced moms of children with Down syndrome that their child was easier to care for than their children with 46 chromosomes.  I feel duped.  She is just like my others, and just like Lukas, in that she doesn't want to sleep in her crib, she always wants to snuggle (I have to fool her with warm blankets to catch a break) and she just loves the breast.  She wasn't feeding well with bottles but it was easier to make her eat and track how much she was eating which I had to do because of her jaundice.  Once the doctor gave her the all-clear I switched to breast and she's been eating like a champion ever since.

And just as an example of the difficulties of finding "me time," I had to walk away from writing as Lukas just brought me his diaper, in the nude, and Clara was crying for Mommy-Clara time.  Lxkas is now fully dressed and Clara is wrapped tightly in her nana blanket checking her surroundings.

My complaint about "me time" is just me wanting to complain.  I love the babies.  I love having two of them.  I love that I was given this last chance to raise children and enjoy it more than I did the first time around.  There will be days to paint.  Clara won't always be a demanding infant. And if I have to, I can paint, go shopping and clean house with her in that new sling when it comes in (ordered through amazon.com).

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I've been noticing that Down syndrome makes the news a lot.  I'm assuming this isn't a new phenomenon, but that I am just now noticing it because it is of interest to me.  Usually it's a feel good story about a kid becoming homecoming queen or a team captain getting to play basketball during an important game, but now and then there are bad stories, like this one.  This is a horribly tragic and sad story, but it also makes me angry.  I was surprised to read that the officers involved are still on duty.  I feel that if the person who had lost their life hadn't been disabled then likely those officers would be suspended pending investigation.  Of course, I don't know the whole story, and perhaps there is more that would lead me to the answers of why these officers weren't suspended, but anger is my first reaction and I hate to think that one life is worth less than others to our civil authorities due to intellectual ability.

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Clara's crying.  I believe we need to snuggle now.