Comparisons... no two babies are alike!

Probably the most difficult thing to get over is that Jeremy will do everything on Jeremy's own time.

 My daughter talked and moved pretty quickly...

and Joey was even quicker... months quicker. 

Jeremy is 6 months (and some change) old and I can count on both hands the number of times he has has rolled over. By 6 months Joey was crawling, standing and 2 months away from walking.

I find myself constantly reminding myself that milestones are just that... milestones. Just because a book or a diagram says that babies with Down syndrome can lag behind by 6 months or more, doesn't mean Jeremy necessarily will, but it also means he could. He has had a lot of things in the way: braces for 23 hours a day for 3 months, heart surgery that has left tummy time at the door for about 6 weeks, and low muscle tone (a common thing with Down syndrome). But despite these roadblocks he has surpassed some expectations - he can sit unassisted in a baby chair, he rolls over even with braces on, he holds his bottle, two days after heart surgery he rolled onto his stomach (in the hospital!), he tries to scoot backwards, and he most recently figured out how to Facetime on the iPad to call his friend in Afghanistan.

I found inspiration very recently from a woman I met at the Down Syndrome Association of Hampton Roads - Step Up for Down Syndrome walk. Her daughter walked up to us, I don't know her age as babies with Down syndrome can look much younger than they are for a very long time, but I think she may be somewhere between 15 months- 24 months. This little girl was so sweet, she wanted a balloon, she said the "baba" and when I handed her one from Jeremy's wagon, she signed (YES! SIGNED!) "thank you." I came into contact with this woman and her family again on Instagram (technology is great!). I never understood the whole #hashtag concept but for fun I decided to #hashtag Down syndrome, Trisomy 21, and the DSAHR - SUDS and she somehow found us and remembered us! I follow her now and watch her daughter daily learn new things. Her daughter follows a sign language program and watches Wheel of Fortune saying the letters to the TV. Little does she know I'm learning from her the great and wonderful things I want Jeremy to be able to do!

While home for his heart surgery my cousin-by-marriage Barbara gave us a set of DVDs to learn sign language - she thought it would be great for Joey to learn... I told her what I had actually learned about sign language and Down syndrome and how awesome it was to have this tool. I don't know sign language, about the extent of what I know is "more," so what am I going to do? Joey and I are going to learn it right along side Jeremy of course!

So what's my bottom line? Even if the odds are against Jeremy, he still deserves the same amount of (if not more) attention and devotion to his early learning as Adalee and Joey received. It will require a lot of tailoring, and a lot of outside-the-box thinking as well as relearning on our parts to help him.