A Day in the Life...

As World Down Syndrome Day approaches on March 21st, join in on our Blog Hop, as we describe a Day in the Life...

Our first peep from Cora comes around midnight.  She wakes up and starts hollering from her room for one of us to come get her.  Because we are sleep-deprived as it is, this is as far as our sleep training process has gotten us.  One of us gets up and brings her into our room, where she snuggles up with her Daddy for a few hours.  Between 4 and 5 she starts to wiggle.  Nick tries to keep her asleep for as long as possible, but some time between 5:30 and 6:00, he usually rolls her over to my side, where in a half-asleep state she grabs and claws at my face until I can stand it no more.  If it's before 6:30, I bring her out to the living room and put her in her pack-and-play and turn on a show... Signing Time, Sesame Street, and Curious George top the list.  Then I go back to bed and try to rest for another half hour or so, until Cora's hollering gets me out of bed.  (And yes, she recently discovered that she can escape the pack-and-play, so we'll how long our stay-in-bed technique continues to work.)



I finally crawl out of bed and let Cora out of her little prison and make myself a mostly-decaf blend of coffee.  I sit with my coffee and read e-mails or junk out on social media while Cora plays around me, squirms her way into my lap with a book or two, or begs for some iPad time.

Then we have breakfast: Cheerios and yogurt on most lazy mornings, sometimes interspersed with something fun like french toast, oatmeal or eggs.  I try to pay enough attention to Cora to keep her food on her tray and on its way to her mouth, but she often topples her food over and proclaims, "Oh no..." and breakfast is over.

Then it's usually dance party time.  Cora yells "tunes" and I turn on Pandora.  We mix it up a bit.  Raffi radio sometimes, reggae at others, and if we're feeling sassy, maybe a little Cyndi Lauper.  Cora shows off her moves as she dances around the living room, making sure to keep tabs on whether I an dancing enough or just going through the motions, and copying my best dance moves (which I am sure she performs much better than I do.)  She holler-sings along, kicks her feet, bops her head and giggles around the room.

We then head into the bathroom to get ready for the day: teeth brushing, sunscreen, hair.  If I am feeling up to wearing a little makeup Cora always asks for some too, and grins after I put a little pretend powder on her cheeks.  She makes fishy faces in the mirror and laughs at herself.  We get dressed.

After some cajoling, we usually both have socks, shoes and coats on, and we head out of the house for our morning activity.  On some days it's Cora's "Music, Marching and Make Believe" class, on others it's a trip to the indoor park, or if weather allows, the real actual outside park.  We go to see live kids' music about once a week, and about once a week we have a therapy appointment for Cora (either speech therapy across town or one of her school district therapists visits the house.)  Other days it's the local Science Museum, or the library, and we even manage to work in the occasional doctor's visit for Cora or for me and a bit of errand running. 

Then it's home for lunch and nap.  These days I lie down with Cora until she falls asleep.  I know it's not the best habit to be in, but after our running around, it's a nice time to relax a bit, and catch a few giggles and snuggles with my girl.  There's just something so sweet about her as she holds onto her blankie and puts her snuggle-puppy in between us, looking at me with a sleepy smile and pushing her forehead up to me for kisses.  While she sleeps I manage to put in some time at my work-from-home job.

 After Cora wakes up, we play a bit in the house, have some more snuggles, and eat a little snack.  The rest of the afternoon can vary.  Usually we'll stay around the house, playing outside if it's nice enough, or trying to keep busy with indoor activities.  Cora runs around commenting on the dogs, birds, squirrels and cats, and waving to the cars that go by. On really long days, we may run an errand or two, or go on a fun adventure outside the house, especially when I am feeling incapable of coming up with hours of activities for a toddler with a pretty short-attention span.

When 5:00 rolls around, it's time to be home and making dinner.  Cora loves to help, but is not content unless she is right in the thick of things.  And with the oven and the stove, that doesn't tend to go over too well.  So sometimes I will distract her with some more iPad time, or an episode of one of her favorite shows until Daddy comes home.

When Nick gets home she runs for him, yelling "Daddy," and usually ready to give him some well-earned hugs and kisses.  She helps Nick get settled and then we sit down to have dinner.  Dinner, like all meals, is sometimes pleasant, but often frustrating, as Cora's food preferences seem to shift with no notice, and getting a balanced meal becomes an exercise in futility.  Although she is fully capable of self-feeding, she often needs help so that her food doesn't end up on the floor, or shoveled in too quickly that she can't handle it and just spits it all all.  Dinner always feels like work, but it's getting better.

After dinner there's play time with Daddy, with lots of laughing, screeching and silliness.  Eventually pajamas get donned, teeth get brushed, and stories get chosen.  On really long and exhausting days sometimes we watch a show as a family before her 7:30 bedtime.  After many goodnight kisses, Nick takes Cora to bed, where hopefully he doesn't fall asleep, and we both keep our fingers crossed that she actually goes down and stays down until her midnight wake. If we're both still awake, we may actually get in an hour or two of time together.

All in all our days are long, very ordinary, and often mundane.  But they are filled with laughs,  snuggles, and songs too.  It's amazing how busy Cora and I keep one another, and hard to envision how much our days will be changing when her new sister arrives on the scene, and when Cora heads off to preschool a couple months after that.  Sometimes it's so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day routines that you don't see how quickly things change. And it's even easier to forget to appreciate the moments we share.  But Cora is a pretty amazing little girl.  For all the toddler frustrations and power struggles, challenges with communication and things that we are working on, she still manages to bring me back into the things that are most important:  our little conversations and silly "jokes"; the hugs and snuggles; the booty-shaking, foot-stomping, dinosaur-roaring boogying.  It's these little things that make me smile when the day is done, and that help me drag myself out of bed in the morning, ready to start it all over again.  It's these thousands of little moments that make up what is really big, what is really important, what we really have that's worth living for.