I really did have the best intentions to post regularly on this blog, and to add pictures. Oh well, the days just continue to fly on by. Maybe, just maybe, if Marisa is successful in the first grade at her new school (Lord, just a wee little prayer request!), I can spend more time on this. I am hoping to finally go through the piles and piles of printed out articles on Down syndrome, inclusion, behavioral support, advocacy, etc., etc., lying on the dining room table, in huge 3 ring binders on the book shelf and covering the desk in the kitchen. Well, it's not quite that bad, but close. The good news is that there are tons of resources out there and most are very useful. The bad news is that I rarely find the time to actually sit down and read any of this stuff anymore. But, then more good news is that one of the reasons I rarely find that time is that we are usually out and about, living our lives, with my darling child out in the community and mingling with "typical" peers at parks, talking to all sorts of people at the dog park, and hanging out with her sister and her friends. It means that she is being "included" in our life and in the life of the world around her, and for now, that is the most important thing.
The other part of this post is a reflection on the trip my older daughter and I took this past weekend. We drove to Ashland and attended a play at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. This was our first time and definitely won't be our last. She even suggested the trip a while back, and after I got up off the floor when she made the suggestion (she is 14 after all), I jumped at the chance. My husband and I moved to Oregon from Massachusetts way back in 1991. I read about the Shakespeare Festival that first year and had wanted to go ever since. It is so nice to be able to check off your personal list of things to do something in the back or your mind for years. And, the trip was definitely worth the 5 hour drive listening mostly to songs my daughter chose or letting her watch something on her portable DVD player while I drove in silence. It sure would be nice sometimes if she and I shared the same musical tastes, but we don't tend to do that.
We stayed in a B&B a short walking distance from the theaters. The Innkeeper was lovely, our room was cozy and nice, and we even lucked out in having our own private bathroom. Nadia was not keen on the breakfast part of the experience when she realized we might have to talk to other people, but she survived the experience. She is not the social butterfly her sister is. We spent the days walking through a large city park, shopping in a bunch of nice boutiques in town and trying out different, and all very good, restaurants. We saw Twelfth Night in the outdoor Elizabethan Theater, and it was very well done. Our tickets could have been better, but next time I'll know to snatch them up earlier in the year.
This is the third Mother/Older Daughter trip she and I have taken since Marisa was born. I took Nadia to Chicago in 2005 to the NDSS Conference, and we had a grand time there. Then a couple of years ago we took the train to Seattle and spent 3 nights in a hotel across from Pike Place Market. All in all that was a good trip, and we got to do several fun things, but Nadia came down with a nasty cold soon after we got there and shared it with me. By the second day we were miserable, but we still look back on that trip fondly. Marisa and her Daddy have a grand time when we're gone and I know the time Nadia and I spend together is priceless. She is a freshman now in high school so we don't have very many summers left before she flies the coop. I want to spend that time wisely, and as often as possible, on the road.
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