17th Birthday

Yesterday my family and I celebrated 17 years of life. I still went to my Friday babysitting family, and saw my little down syndrome friend who I've come up with a name for. On this blog I'm going to call him Sho. Its Japenese (which doesn't have anything to do with why I chose it, just a fun fact), it has the same amount of letters as his real name, and it means, "to soar/to fly". I wanted a name that had the opposite connotation of the word 'downs', because thats exactly what this little guy is. He smiles and fusses and eats and poops like any other baby. He has his big brother's wide smile and his daddy's bald head, the big blue eyes of the brother nearest his age, he's turning one next month. Sho isn't defined entirely by down syndrome.

I took this picture yesterday. Isn't it a hoot?! I laugh out loud every time I see it. Especially the half closed eye. And his mouth is kind of huge. Anyway, Sho gave me one of my very favorite presents yesterday. I went over in the morning and Sho's mom started showing me how his physical therapist said to hold him to help him sit up. Anyway, so I was practicing and Sho was watching his big brother play with a toy and he seemed pretty steady so I took my hands away. After a few seconds without support and he was still straight and sitting, I called his mom in to look. The whole family kind of trickled in as little Sho sat for the first time for about 1 minute! He did it again several times throughout the morning, getting up to almost 2 minutes once. Big boy! I was so proud of him! It was so much fun to be there for that.

Good job, little Sho!!! We're all so proud of you. Keep working hard, and thank you for making my birthday babysitting job especially exciting!

ps. I did do other things on my birthday including planting a tree, witnessing another little (baby) friend have her first taste of chocolate, eating Ethiopian food with family and 2 close friends and wrapping up the evenings with frozen yogurt and presents. Just if you're interested. :) I got a laptop on which I have composed this blogspost!