Seven is twirling and running and besties with pinky promises and BFFs and side pony-tails and Justice shirts with skorts. It’s second grade and hip-hop dance class. It’s learning to read and write while staying in the lines. It’s new reading glasses and soccer games and watching other people open presents on Youtube. It’s Magic-clip dolls lined up and Winx Club fairies driving cars. It’s Brownies and gap-tooth smiles. It’s playing cars with the little sister and stealing the big sister’s fairy books. It’s hogging the IPad and writing the grade of WOW on the homework before turning it in. It’s sitting with pals rather than parents at the volleyball game and getting up and trying to make toast and pour kefir in the morning before the parents wake. It’s playing Taylor Swift in the car and singing along to Taylor the Latte Boy. It’s pancakes with smiley faced whip cream and sprinkles and living room sleepovers with sisters. It’s knowing the words in your head but not being able to quite articulate the answer in time with the others and standing back to watch until you can get it right without faltering. It’s being independent in the pool with the help of a floatie and scheduling a first orthodontist appointment. It’s running off with the big girls at family camp and dancing when you feel like it. It’s holding the babies at playdates and your sister’s soccer games. It’s finally speaking in full sentences and tween jargon. It’s a twinkle in your eye and sass on your lips. It’s only wanting your uncle and your dance teacher’s husband at your birthday party. It’s a bedtime lovey named Tigey that you call a bear. It’s after school tutors and speech and occupational and physical therapy appointments each week. It’s more speech and occupational therapy and resource classes in school. It’s a memorized lunch pin and getting yourself out of the car without too much complaint in the drop off line. It’s a summer of day camp and a hospitalization and too many homedays for pneumonia. It’s visits with grandparents and aunts and uncles when the rest of your family gets sick too. It’s cheering your spelling words and then sword fighting them. It’s asking for babysitters and movie dates and manicures. It’s outgrowing the need for your pediatric cardiologist and the ongoing quest for the perfect ADD medication. It’s society seeing you as disabled and your friends and sisters seeing you as not having a disability. It’s drinking through a straw but being cool enough to carry a water bottle to class. It’s digging for hours in the sand and eating all the croissants your tiny hands can hold. It’s pulling your own suitcase in the airport just as long as it has your Barney pillow tucked in to the pocket. It’s refusing to let your mom cover you at bedtime and insisting it be your dad. It’s you.

‪#‎DSAwareness‬ ‪#‎31for21‬ ‪#‎DSAM16 ‪#‎downsyndrome‬ #ordinaryafters #downsyndromeawarenessmonth