It's sooooo quiet...

All the kids are off to school, and my one daycare kiddo for today isn’t here yet. It is SO quiet, I can hear the dog breathing!!  LOL   I can’t remember the last time it was this quiet!  I have things to do but I know the peacefulness won’t last, so I’m just sitting here enjoying it.  Heehee

This morning, as I was getting everyone ready to get them out the door, I thought about something that someone had said that has resonated with me for the past almost two years.  In Ukraine, Timothy’s birth country, children with Down syndrome are thought to be “unteachable”.  Since they have that mindset there, they don’t spend any time trying to teach them the basics, alphabet, colors, shapes, etc.   They wouldn’t grow up to be anyone anyway, so why bother, right?  They aren’t taught how to speak, either.  We are having a struggle with that part now that he almost 6 and it has nothing to do with the different language, it’s that he had no verbal base to even start from.  That’s another post though. 

Back to this morning.  I was busy with something, and Timothy decided that he needed his hands washed.  He went to the kitchen, got the step stool out, put it in front of the sink(turned it the right way like I had showed him the last time he tried to use it), climbed up, turned on the water, and proceeded to wash his hands (using soap from the pump thing too!!).   I stood back and watched him as he did each step, methodically, like he’d been doing it forever at that very sink(we do this in the bathroom but he doesn’t need to climb up).  When he was done, he turned off the water, dried his hands (ok, went through the motions, they were still dripping hehe), got down off of the step stool and went on his merry way.

THIS is a child that was deemed “unteachable”.  THIS is a child who would have been sentenced to a life of head banging, rocking, and nonsensical babble for the rest of his life if not for being found and brought home where he is loved, and cherished, and taught the things that no one there even thought he could learn.  THIS is a child who, by now, would have probably died because in the mental institution that he’d have been sent to, they wouldn’t have had the time, or patience to keep up with him so he would have been tied to a crib or a chair all day just so he’d be still (he has ADHD).  I know him well enough now to know that this would have eventually killed him.  He might have fought it at first, tried to get away.  But to keep him calm, maybe they would have given him medication/sedation.  After a little while, he would have given up.  


They would have broken his feisty little spirit.  He would have stopped trying to get away, and then he would have stopped eating because that is the one thing that we have found he is the pickiest about.  He would have died.

Alone.  No one would have really cared, or maybe they wouldn’t have even noticed.  I can’t say. 

What I CAN say though is that it would have been a horrible, awful loss even if no one knew it.  He IS smart, and thoughtful, and intuitive, and eager to learn, and eager to please.  He is feisty, and ornery, and sneaky, and silly, and demanding, and helpful, and charming, and way too adorable for anyone’s good.  He is loving, and sweet, and careful, and imaginative, and nurturing, and beautiful.  

He is my son.  My little boy.  A sweet little crazy manchild who has blended into our family almost flawlessly.  A little boy that I love just as much as if I had grown him inside of me.  A little person who I believe CAN do anything he sets his mind to.   Every time I see him do something, like this morning, or solve a problem on his own, I can’t help but think “They said he was unteachable”.  I can’t help but think of what “they” missed out on.  Those people who didn’t have any idea of the potential of this little firecracker of a boy.   

Hmmm… I guess these are the things I think about when there is no one here who needs me and I have time to think.  Maybe that’s a good thing?  ;)