A Day In The Life

For World Down Syndrome Day I'm participating in a blog hop that shows you what "a day in the life" is like.

I'm glad I didn't have to write this post a year ago because I'm certain it would look much different than this one. At the beginning of last year my day was filled with grief, worry, stress, doctors appointments and lots of feeding issues. We have all come a long way in just a short year. Yes our lives are still busy, but I don't know of anyone who has kids that will say that they aren't busy. I would say the majority of the time our day is probably pretty comparable to a day of anyone else. Every now and then will have a day filled with lots of appointments and that can make for a hectic day, but those days are now few and far between. If I'm going to be honest, my four year old keeps me much busier and is more of a challenge than Camden is right now. Our days are no longer centered around Camden and Down syndrome. Actually, we don't think about Down syndrome most days. Here is a little glimpse of what a typical day looks like in our house.

I usually wake up between 7 and 7:30 and that's only because Carter wakes up around then. Camden will sleep till 8 or 8:30 at times. Once Carter wakes up the first thing that is out of his mouth is "Mommy I'm hungry." "Mommy I need a drink." "Mommy turn on my show." Then Camden wakes up and gets a bottle and some breakfast. Then I will get everybody dressed for the day. Now if I'm feeling extra lazy and we're not leaving the house, some days nobody gets dressed and we're in our pajamas all day.

Usually around 10 some sort of therapist comes over to work with Camden and if not then I usually work with him. During this whole time Carter continues to say "mommy I'm hungry" or "I want something to eat" over and over and over again. He is like a bottomless pit. He never stops eating. He is going to eat us out of house and home. I'm not sure what he will do when he stats school this fall and won't be able to eat every second of the day. He will think he's starving to death! After we are done playing or doing therapy, I usually turn on "Baby Signing Time" for Camden so I can do a little bit of housework. Camden loves this part of the day because he loves his videos and he will just sit there quietly mesmerized by it.  Carter on the other hand is usually running through the house being destructive and doing what boys do. I think you can already tell who keeps this mom the busiest of the two. Then it's usually lunchtime and we all three sit down and eat lunch and then I put Camden down for a nap around 1:00. At this point I would love to just lay down and take a nap myself or maybe get caught up on some reading. That would be ideal. However, I have a four year old that does not believe in naps anymore and does not even believe in quiet time either. So, I usually spend this time doing something with Carter to try and keep him entertained.

Camden then wakes up around 4:00 (yep he takes a three hour nap which is awesome) and then I usually give them a snack. After snack time I may do some therapy exercises with Camden but let's be real, that doesn't happen very often. The weather has been so nice lately that we are usually outside playing in the afternoon.

Carter is still saying "I'm hungry" and eating whatever else is left to eat. Around 6 pm it's time to fix dinner, we eat, and then we are all in the living room together either playing or watching TV. Again, during this time Carter is still running around the house being destructive and saying "mommy I'm hungry." Bath time comes next and then we get ready for bed. We read a book, we say our prayers, and we go to sleep. That's it. Sounds like an average day, huh? It may sound boring even. Not every single day is like this of course. 

Some days we go shopping.

Somedays we have playdates and hang out with friends.

Some days we just go out and do whatever!

As you can see though, a day in our life is pretty typical. Now, I don't know that I will be able to say this a year from now or 10 years from now. What I can say today without a doubt is that we are beyond blessed and are happier than we could possibly imagine!