Buy my Dress / Ava in the Examiner!

The all important Buy my Dress campaign takes place this Thursday 20th in Dublin in Cork.

Full details at the (rather excellent) Down Syndrome Centre website. Funds from the event go towards a liaison nurse so spread the word! I was in the Down Syndrome Centre office's recently and it was pretty full on with Sheila and her staff working tirelessly to organise the event, surrounded by dresses everywhere. This was weeks ago so I imagine they are wrecked by now.Related to the event we gave an interview to the Examiner newspaper, we basically as parents were outlining how important it is to have a liaison nurse available when a child is born with DS so get out there and buy some dresses people.

All Grown Up! Two! Peppa Pig! School! Cake!

Morning,

Can't believe our Ava Bear is Two! Her birthday was at the start of April and we had all her friends over for cake and balloons!

Also today is a big day as Ava starts going to school on Wed as well as Monday. Her schedule is pretty jammed now with School Monday / Mothers Group on Tuesday / SKIP on Wed AM / School on Wed PM / Extra swimming sessions!. Busy busy especially for Duffo!

To celebrate this milestone she has a new schoolbag which will debut today.

Not all roses in the garden however in that although she is picking up loads of new Lamh and now saying "Yes" and understanding loads she has yet to master the ol walking but is slowly getting there.....not a moment too soon!

Ava Doin Her Thang!

Family Guy....

I watch Family Guy a lot. I even watch repeats I have seen before when there is nothing else on. I often am shocked at how they push the envelope and watched the 'Down Syndrome' episode with major trepidation.
Definitely not a good episode humor wise but I was not personally offended. I was pleased to see the character was played by a woman with Down Syndrome (Andrea Fay Friedman). I have watched Palin on Fox and also The View discussion and tried to get a sense of what people think out there.

Personally it appeared to me like inclusion with of course some jokes at her expense but they have done far worse in the past to other people and other disabilities (Michael J Fox etc).

Interesting Article from Irish Times 02.02.10

My sister gave me a heads up on this article from the Irish Times last week, well worth reading a good news story when you constantly hear about cuts.

Down Syndrome Centre ThinkTank

Evening All,

This morning myself and some other parents attended the Down Syndrome Centre Think Tank in PWC Offices in Dublin. The aim of the event was to outline challenges and solutions related to new parents and the first year of dealing with a child with DS. I gather this is the first of several Think Tanks.


We all got to input our thoughts on the kind of challenges one can expect and solutions to them. In addition we got to suggest resources we found useful and I even managed to hear some new ones myself. As with all such discussions there is always a tendency for parents (myself included) to focus on their own unique situation and ramble on. The unique format of the event, using a laptop based collaboration system, kept things mostly on track however and I think the key points were definitely captured.

Down Syndrome Centre should be commended as this was extremely well organised but this is what we have come to expect from this highly progressive organisation. I spoke with more than one parent who felt the same way afterwards. As a facebook user I am often delighted to see their informative articles appear on my news feed and they are also on twitter!

I'm Down With You

I saw this just now on Facebook (from Sophie McCaughey post) and *love* it, I really like the intro especially and how he describes people with down syndrome. Love it Love it. Hope you all enjoy it too.....

I'm Down with You from jagatjoti Singh Khalsa on Vimeo.