Steven and I were having a lazy Sunday night at home last night when I asked him if he wanted to play a game. He responded with I want to color. He had been given a coloring activity page at church that day, just as he had dozens of times before. But he usually doesn’t do anything with them. But last night he asked to color it. I thought o.k. whatever. I got him the crayons and left him at the table thinking, right, in a few minutes or less he’ll say I’m done and there will be a few markings on the page. Steven just doesn’t do much of this kind of play independently. I am used to sitting with him and directing his every move if I want him to do something like color or practice writing. I was sitting vegging in front of the TV waiting for the “I’m done” when I realized it had been a while since I heard anything from him. I looked around the corner to find him extremely focused on his page. When I got over to him I couldn’t believe what I saw. He had colored the whole page and with purpose. He then proceeded to tell me that the person he had drawn in the middle of the page was Tinkerbelle. I felt the hot sting of tears in my eyes and just began to cry. I knelt down and gave him the biggest hug and told him how proud I was (yep, I am crying right now as I recall it). There are times I just give up on Steven ever developing some of the skills we all want our kids to have, and doing these kinds of tasks was one of those things I thought he would just never do. Just when I finally give up God surprises me again. Who ever thought that a simple coloring page could evoke such strong emotion.

Steven goes through fazes depending on the movie he is into at the moment. Most of the time they involve a prince or someone who is the hero to a damsel in distress, and in the end they fall in love and live happily ever after. Some of his favorites are Enchanted, Aladdin, Hannah Montana, The Little Mermaid and currently The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. He always considers himself the prince and his sister the princess. So he watches the movie and then acts it out, continuously. He wears hearing aids so he doesn’t always get the right pronunciation of the characters and I had to laugh when after watching The Hunchback for the 5th time this week he said he was “Crazy Photo” (Quasimodo), and the Gypsy girl was cheesy girl. We love these mispronunciations they always makes me smile. So he is currently wearing a cape and walking all hunched over, but this “Crazy Photo”, has a belt and sword. Steven must always be the prince. He considers himself the prince and his sister his princess and he fights evil dragons for her all the time. He loves to pretend he is rescuing her from and evil dragon and then he and she will live happily ever after. It’s funny, but he seems to be fine with her having a boyfriend. That may change when she finally gets married and doesn’t live here anymore. There may be a sword fight.

God amazed me again today. Here we are having a lay around and get Steven well day and God sends and angel to cheer him up. Steven absolutely idolizes his big sis’s old boyfriend Garrett. He thinks he is so cool. So today Garrett was going to walmart and called to see if Steven would like to go with him, just to get out. What a blessing, for Steven to have a peer to go do something with, and for me to have some free time. It is so encouraging to see a youth reach out to a kid like Steven. What a small but meaningful gesture.

Sick!!! Happy Valentines Day

Steven has a terrible cold. I hate it when he is sick. It is so sad. Because of some anatomy issues that are normal in people with Down syndrome it makes having any kind of sinus problem worse. He just can’t breath through his nose at all. We work on him with sinus washes and nasal spray and cold medicine, but it is just a horrible week no matter what you do. So here we go again. But it is the first time he has been sick this year and that is such a blessing. Years ago when he was under 8 we spent most winters in and out of the hospital, on constant antibiotics and having ear and sinus surgeries. Those were tough years. I praise the Lord that I was younger and had more energy because we just operated on no sleep most of the time.
But even though he has had sinus surgery to open up his sinuses, and his tonsils and adenoids removed he still struggles with any kind of sinus illness. He is such a trooper. He takes his medicine and when it works tells me how he is not sick anymore, only to have the symptoms return a few short hours later. I will pray that this one will go away on its own (and soon) without antibiotics. And maybe next time his immune system will be that much stronger.

Steven has always loved guitars and has at least 3 toy sized ones. He jams out on them and sings love songs to his sister. So we decided to try Steven in guitar lessons. We were lucky enough to find a guitar teacher that has a brother with special needs. He was more that happy to give this a try. I am happy to report that it is going well. After 4 lessons, Steven is learning to play some simple chords. I have to admit I was a bit skeptical, but once again Steven has exceeded my expectations.

School Fund Raisers

O.K. Steven comes off the bus with a great big smile and a baggie full of something he is excitedly holding out and talking about as he comes up the front steps today. When he finally gets in and explains, I find that he has been given 9 candy bars to sell for his choir class. You’ve all been through this right? The choir, or band or whatever needs to raise money so they send your kid home with a box full of candy bars to sell to your friends, neighbors and relatives. You groan and ask how many are in the box and just right a check. After all it is better than walking around your neighborhood in the freezing cold or taking them to the office. Well not if your Steven’s mom. How could I. He was looking at me with those big blue eyes and telling me how he was going to sell them to people for $1. If you could only hear him. So I finally agree, but I explain that I need to shower first. As soon as I get out of the shower Steven says, your hair looks fine mom. He does not want to wait for me to dry it. Laughing I tell him he will just have to wait. He stands in the doorway to the bathroom the whole time saying, your hair looks fine, mom. When we are finally ready to go I have to stop off at the post office to get the mail. When I come out he has his window open and is waving to me. When I get in the car I find out he has sold a candy bar from the car window. How could anyone refuse his face? So we make the rounds and sell all 9 candy bars. I am thinking, that was a piece of cake, they should have given him more. Then he begins to tell me how we need to go home so he can put the money in his wallet. Uh, Oh. With all the excitement I didn’t even think about the fact that he thought he was selling this stuff to make money for himself. You should have seen his face. Of coarse that is what he thought. Why else would he go to all that trouble? Well he accepted it pretty well and after all we had so much fun. It is so funny that after 15 years I still have trouble seeing through Steven eyes. I learn something new everyday.