BBC Radio 4 Tonight 8pm

Morning! Woke up this morning and saw the end of an item about DS on the BBC Breakfast program.

Missed the actual segment itself but they were seemingly doing a promo about a radio show tonight on BBC Radio 4 (you can listen here http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/radio/bbc_radio_four/)

Born with Down's-Born with Down's
8:00 pm - 8:30 pm "Felicity Finch finds out why more babies are being born with Down's syndrome."

If it is any good I will try and podcast it here for folk to listen at leisure.

Updated http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00fkx0m

Tis the Season...

Happy Monday!

Xmas is coming, why not go here and buy some Down Syndrome Ireland Xmas cards?

I ordered yesterday and they have already shipped them.

Go on you know you want to....

Mums get together, eat cakes and stuff...

Ok so this is really just another shameless 'photo' post (kind of) :)

My wife, Duffo, is part of a group that meet weekly in each others houses with the kids. They met and arranged it through the www.downsyndrome.ie forums which shows what a valuable resource they are.

It is really nice to get the kids together and I just love this photo of Ava (bear), Noah and Cathal. Photo by Cathals Mum.

Also I wanna shamlessly paste a post duffo found on Cathals Big Adventure which I thought was super cool. This was a comment in reply to a photo of the 'Gang' at the last weekly meeting.

The picture of "the gang" brings me back to 1982, when my brother was two. Services and networks were poor so my Mum contacted new parents of children with Downs Syndrome and they came to our house for advice and a chat. On many occasions I came home to find a little "gang" in our sitting room with their anxious parents.
My brother is now 28 and our little visitors of 1982 and beyond are his best friends.
Keep up the great work

Also I notice Cathal has an Xbox 360 and likes comics....most excellent....

Ava's Ticker Checkup Part II (Back to Crumlin)

Ok so back in May we had been out to Crumlin to see Dr Franklin. Today was our follow up and although it was somewhat routine there was always that worry in the back of our mind.

Anyway the good news was that there is now only one very small hole left and it is so tiny there is nothing to worry about. Better again is it will almost certainly close up.

Once again Dr Franklin was super nice. The HSE should really consider moving this leading cardiologist out of her prefab portacabin with inadequate heating some day soon. Oh and the car parking still sucks bigtime. I cant imagine how frustrating this is if you were going there regularly for something serious.

And finally myself and the lovely Duffo fully realise how lucky we are that Ava has dodged this particular bullet. If she did have a problem however I would have total confidence in Dr Franklin.

That's My Daughter in the Water

So as previously documented Ava has been swimming already with her Mum and Dad. Well this morning was my first "Dad's Morning" at Carmona House with Ava. We all took to the pool with our little ones and did the usual songs. The songs were however accompanied by lots of movement in the water and Ava loved it. The facilities and staff there are really top class.

Afterwards the fathers got together for coffee in another part of Carmona. We briefly discussed DS related matters and then moved on to Top Gear, the economy and of course property prices.

It is interesting to go to these events as it is very easy to sit at home with Ava and forget the larger context. I have to admit trips to Carmona do make me think about the long term. I do love to see other kids who are two and stuff and try and predict what Ava will be like. Anyway a great day!

Ava = Ladybug!

Happy Halloween.

Yes I should be posting about the budget, u-turns and the like but unfortunately work has just been crazy :(

In the meantime here is a shameless Halloween Photo of Ava Bear as a ladybug! They have whiskers now apparently :)