The One-Eyed Twinkie

Since this is Ava's first Halloween and at nine and a half months she's the perfect baby-age to enjoy dressing up, I've been stewing over her costume since July.  

It had to fit with her unique personality.  It needed to say "I'm adorable, inquisitive, and my laugh is slightly diabolical."

So food themes and harmless fluffy animals were out.

So were overmarketed Disney characters, outdated Hanna-Barbera cartoons, and any creature too typical or spooky.

So we were down to Curious George(ette), a Minion, or a Narwhal.

Feast your peepers on the winner!:

Over the course of a month or so, Miss Christy hunted down the components of a convincing Minion getup and pieced them together for my Squishbutt, from the lemony onesie down to the wacky pipe cleaner hairs on her cap!  Now doesn't that beat the tar outta buying an overpriced costume from our local mass retailer -- you know, the kind that just looks kind of like a flattened version of whatever it's supposed to be?

So we took the one-eyed Twinkie for a trial run at the Kidsource Halloween carnival.  

(Kidsource is where A-bird receives four types of therapy, and she's taken to the whole thing like a minnow to water.)

Most everyone who had seen a movie in the last ten years could easily identify who she was masquerading as.  The rest declared that "he" made a fine one-eyed bumblebee.  Sheesh.

(And that still doesn't top the Halloween I went as one of Robert Palmer's video vixens and ended up being asked multiple times if I was Lillith from the sitcom Frasier.  Apparently I was more severe than saucy.  D'oh.)

We got through a few photo ops....

....a hayride.....

....and a hot dog before Sweet Cheeks became EEEEK Cheeks.....

....and fell soundly asleep.

Rollin' and Strollin'!

Hone Boo Boo Dog insists: "Let's stretch our lazy bones and take a walk!"

Cheeks concurs.  Let the consumption of fresh air commence as Honey leads the way!

Ava sees high-up things....

...low-down things...

...and swingy beany things in between.

We traipse our way across sunny paths....

...and shady lanes....

...pausing to admire the majesty of those who still abide beside those long-established byways.

At the cross that stands to bear witness to where its tracks used to traverse..

...the flowers remember, yet remain mum.

And as the merciful clouds shield our sky-hued eyes and the hairs of our coppery heads from the overexuberance of the sun...

...and friends implore us to stop, and to stay awhile....

....we heed the beckoning of hearth and home...

...where familiar faces are the loveliest scenery of all.

October

Mercury falling

I rise from my bed

Collect my thoughts together

I have to hold my head

....

She brighten my day

She warm the coldest night

The hounds of winter

They got me in their sights....

- Sting

I have a strange relationship with October. 

 I truly look forward to it all year.   I crave the clarity and crispness of the shifting northern wind that bears undertones of field fires and fallen leaves stirred underfoot, its breezes nearly detectable to the tongue by the taste of the air.  My dress becomes more concealing and reflective of autumn's colors and quality of light, as if I could better attune myself to the season and accept its finality by fading into its warm palette.  I bust out the tin pans and bake whatever stirs my imagination. I always take long walks, short naps, and am constantly boiling a cauldron of this-and-that soup to sip during rainy day Harry Potter marathons.

Fall is easily my favorite season.... on paper.

Really, it's difficult.  Less stressful than grown-up Christmastime, but moodier.  I have trouble being alone, even though I'll never actively seek another's company.  I tend to drink too much coffee, dye my hair too dark, lose myself in the alternate realities of tragic fiction, revert to grunge music and pit bull talk radio, and pen journalfuls of self-indulgent poetry.  I'm so 1994 I can hardly stand myself.

Now that I'm a mother and my attitude affects the emotional well-being of a wee someone whose temperament is not yet set in stone, I'm terrified of this slippery slope of rainy day self-indulgence that tends to set in with the Stone Temple Pilots.  I can't get down and waste my time plodding through these days of diminishing sunlight, because there are little eyes watching me.  If I smile, she smiles.  If I cry, she cries.  If I laugh too hard, she cries. (My boo-hoo and my belly laugh must sound similar to her.)  If I sit around all weekend working myself into a funk watching Winona Rider movies, she's not going to learn to look forward to this time of year -- a time when we should be roasting hot dogs and marshmallows at her grandparents' church hayride and carving kittycat faces into  pumpkins.  God forbid that she would ever have to act as her parent's emotional babysitter just because the season shifted.

So starting this year, I'm going to do whatever it takes to adjust myself to the change in the air, for her sake.  I may dye my hair platinum instead of mahogany.  Switch to decaf.  Learn how to cook a good Irish breakfast.  Thrill to scary movies that are actually scary (because , as Aunt Jess knows, I am a tremendous wuss).  Listen to Glenn Miller instead of Glen Beck.  Embark upon lengthy strolls behind A-Bird's stroller, scarf aflutter.  

I can be present enough in my own mind to make a change.  Because whether we realized it or not when we chose to become parents, my husband and I stepped beyond the obligation of only meeting our own needs and into the responsibility of looking after the needs of our daughter.

And that doesn't just cover the DHS checklist of food, clothing and shelter.  

Affection and emotional security are way up there, too.

Happy, Happy.....Happy?

"Is she ever NOT happy?"

If we are in public with Ava, we are guaranteed to be asked this question.

I can easily understand why.

When most people think of someone with Down Syndrome, their first thoughts are of an individual with a sunny, friendly disposition and a positive attitude.

Ava's no exception.  Her default mode is a quick-breathed, open-mouthed smile, usually accompanied by spells of ecstatic arm flapping.  When someone does this nearly every time they see you, it's easy to believe that even if they were sitting in a corner by themselves with no stimulation whatsoever, they would still be doing the same thing.

But it's important to remember that no matter what a child's disposition may be, they still experience the complex emotions that you do.

Ava may be chromosomaly gifted in the attitude department, but let me assure you that as she grows, she's learning to express both happiness.....

...AND displeasure.

It's important to remember that just because someone might smile most of the time, it doesn't mean that they don't have moments when they feel less than smiley.

Granted, some might get over the hurt faster than others.

So much for Vulcan morality.

At A Medium Pace

GINORMOUS TROPHY:

Ava has it.

Over the past week, she's also gained a new G-button (after a frantic dash to Arkansas Children's Hospital once we realized that her original one had become dislodged.  It looked like a jellyfish smeared with mayonnaise.  Ew.), some major arm strength to help her push up into crawling position, the ability to sit up unassisted for ten seconds, and the ability to quote old-school SNL (BA-Ba WA-Wa!")

Ava and her "Da" snuggling in the ER. 

Overall, it's been a scrambly-yet-pleasant week.  Daddy's in deer mode, and the un-smell of scent canceling spray for hunters permeates the house.  The music from a half dozen battery operated toys floats through the crisp fall air as Ava Leigh works through the "strength stations" Mommy has set up throughout the house.

Gotta make time just to make cutesies, though!

...and life resumes a pattern so resembling normal, I almost find it disorienting.  Her therapy schedule is full and steady.  We're on the road only two days a week.  I'm going about the business of gradually stocking a winter pantry and thinning out needless items for a round of yard selling.  We actually have dinner at the table together as a family most nights.  I'm having much less anxiety about   putting down the electronics and facing tasks at hand.  And I'm home enough to keep the fall mums alive.

So as wacky as things have been in the past, the present resembles the future I'd always dreamed of.