World Down Syndrome Day – Just Being Rachel

World Down Syndrome Day is recognized every year on March 21 (3-21) because simply stated,  Down syndrome is created when a person has three copies of the 21st chromosome.  There are celebrations, ceremonies and educational activities all around the world.

Personally, I think one of the best things we can do to promote awareness of individuals with Down syndrome is to simply live our lives. Go. Do. Be. So, I want to give you a snapshot of Rachel’s day.  Star Date:  March 20, 2018

Rachel’s alarm goes off at 6:34 AM blaring “Nicest Kids in Town.” Hairspray is one of her favorite shows.  She turns off her alarm and checks her text messages.  She has a good morning message from her dad who is in New York City.

Down the hall to the bathroom.  Remember, clean that mouth guard so mom won’t get irritable.  Then, back to her room to get dressed. She picked out a dress the night before because she doesn’t have baking lab today.  She loves to wear dresses. She dresses herself and comes down the stairs singing. “Good morning Baltimore.” Stops to pet her dog Dora.  This morning she is lucky because I made pigs in the blanket for breakfast. One of her faves.  She wants some fruit so she finds some pears in the fridge and asks me to help her with the milk because it is a new jug and hard to open. She gets the ketchup.  She says her morning prayer and eats.

Upstairs to brush her teeth and I remind her to wear her retainer.  She gives me a look.  Then, she checked to be sure she had all of her work. She read eight chapters of “Anthem” by Ayn Rand over break. I helped her write an outline for Chapter 10 of her senior memory book for English. They will work on those in English class today, and she doesn’t want to forget hers. Chapter 10 is on the good, the bad and the ugly of 9, 10 and 11th grade. There are  a lot of pages. Then, she made sure she had her extra credit for astronomy and baking. She helped bake a puff pancake, and she is pretty excited to show her teacher.

The fastener on her Vera Bradley crossbody pouch has broken – again. So she leaves that in her room and puts her phone in her backpack. Since dad is gone, mom drives to school. Rachel always prays on the way to school.  Somewhere in all of this she checked SnapChat. I don’t do SnapChat so I can’t give a report.

We pull up to the front door and she gets her backpack and says, “Bye mom. I love you more.” I respond with a smile and “I love you most.” She says hi to people as she goes into the building. She loves school and was excited to start back.

Did I mention I’m chair of Project Grad for the Olathe South Class of 2018? I had to go by school to pick up Project Grad mail. I happened to be there during the period she works in the attendance office. I ran into her in the hall, all smiles and delivering passes and avoiding me.

She responds to my text a little after 3 to let me know her friend Haidyn can bring her home. About 10 minutes later, she comes into the house all smiles. I get the normal report that school was great today.  According to Rachel, school is always great. She told me Haidyn could bring her home on Wednesday and Thursday, too. She told me she had something from acting for me and brought me information about Thespians painting senior bricks and the end of year celebration. She told me she didn’t have any homework.  She said her baking teacher liked her project and had already seen it on Instagram.

Then, she reminded me that Ms. Fitz (case manager/friend) has a birthday later in the week. “Can you bring us lunch for her birthday?” I said yes but she needed to text her to see if that was okay. Then, she went to her room and danced and sang until time to eat.

Tuesday is Zumba and sewing night at Inclusion Connections so Rachel likes to eat before she goes.  On  her way to the table she e told me she noticed I had put out Easter decorations. She said she was happy because she could play with the musical, dancing bunny and chicken that our  friend Charley had given her. Then, she said she missed Charley. He passed away a few years ago. She had pasta, and she made some lemonade. She had put the empty lemonade container back in the fridge so I had to remind her that she is supposed to make it when it is empty. Before eating, she fed Dora.

Her friend Savanna picked her up and took her to Zumba and sewing. She came home a few hours later and reported that some of her school friends were new peers at Inclusion Connections. She was excited about that. She said she had a blister on her foot but didn’t want me to touch it.  She said she would soak it like dad did after he did one of his runs. Then, she showed me her pouch and said it was broke and she needed a new one.  She said she and dad had snapped. He’s on the train to Boston.

She went up to shower, and I reminded her to put lotion on because her skin is really dry.  She came down stairs after her shower and told me she took care of her blister on her foot. I was quite impressed with this.  She let Dora in and loved on her for a few minutes.

Then, she sat by me for a few minutes and we talked about school tomorrow and what she should wear. She mentioned that she has baking, and “We are going to make cinnamon rolls.” She was excited about this. I reminder her that tomorrow was World Down Syndrome Day and she said she had seen that on Twitter.  I said, “If you could tell people one thing about people with Down syndrome, what would it be?” She said that was a hard question. Then, she said “You should be nice to everyone. They should just watch Just Like You-Down Syndrome. You know mom, it says you shouldn’t treat people with Down syndrome different.”  I nodded.

Then, she kissed me good night and said, “I love you more.” I responded like I do every night with “I love you most.”

I think Rachel does a pretty good job of spreading Down syndrome awareness just by being Rachel.

#WDSD18  #LevelUpWDSD

This is a #WDSD18 Challenge and a #bloghop. There are so many ways people with Down syndrome raising the bar. Let’s #LevelUpWDSD

Thanks to my friend Mardra for inviting me to be a part of this #BlogHop. The rules of this hop are simple: Post your links here anytime in the month of March. For every blog you post, read, comment, and share on at least two others blogs.  This is the month we fight the Google-War. Tag your shares with #WDSD18 and #LevelUpWDSD to make it easy to find and share, too.

Please join us in telling a story or stories.  Tell us what you, and your loved ones, are doing this month to level up the world for people with Down syndrome. Or, and just as importantly, tell us about the level up of  ONE PERSON with Down syndrome.

ADD YOUR BLOG LINK HERE

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