Gideon these past few weeks

Most of my posts recently have all been "Gideon-charged."  And sorta "heavy" if that makes sense.  I don't want that to be the norm though of my writing here.  I do want to write a little bit of the family and our goings on and such.  With Gids in the mix, however, our goings on have been ... different.

Kids are doing great with practically everything.  They've all settled in with him, all very concerned about him.  Tonight Colby asked me, "when he has his heart surgery, will he get 100% oxygen like normal?"  The kids ask off and on, "will he be high functioning or not?"  There's an unspoken competition to see who Gids smiles at first.  He hasn't smiled yet.  Well, not on purpose anyways.  Everyone tries to get him to smile at them so they can be "the winner."  I'm sorta in the competition too.  He better smile at me first!  After everything I went through to get him here!?!  LOL!

Soccer has started up.  The 4 older ones are on travel teams and the little ones are still in rec.  I almost didn't sign the younger ones up.  Too much going on.  But they were begging and of course I broke.  Good thing I love soccer.  If this was for theatre or something of the sort, ugh, that'd be so hard!  What makes it all difficult for me is, I have to depend 100% on others to get my kids to and from practices and most games.  G-man can't leave the house and I won't leave him with my inlaws, so I have to rely on others to cart my kids around.  Talk about walk of shame!  I was told that Filipinos are a pride-pull fee-full!  It might be true.  I've got some weird pride in my blood, and having to get help from others really takes it out of me.  But I have no choice.  And so I just walk around feeling super grateful, super indebt, and super remembering how this is and how I will carpool anyone who needs it in the future. 

Gideon's doing great.  He's very dependent on his oxygen, feeding tube and meds, but he's thriving.  He's gaining weight and is actually a really good sleeper (thanks to the cardiac stuff I've learned.)  He LOVES making and keeping eye contact with people who are engaging him.  He's so inquisitive.  I forget so many times that he's only 6 weeks old.  He's starting to hold his head up when I lay him on my chest.  It's so cute.  He'll be on my chest then bring his head up and that canula is up on his forhead.  He's so precious.

Today Angela said, "he doesn't even look like he has down syndrome."  Honestly, I wasn't sure how to take that.  He has moments when he really doesn't look downs at all, but then moments when he looks super downs.  And it's those moments that I just LOVE!  I love that I get to be the mom of a baby with ds.  He's such a special, strong, valiant, precious guy and I kinda want the world to see how great my kid is even with the ds.  I don't want people to see ds as a "negative" thing but rather a GREAT and noble thing.  I don't know if this makes any sense. 

While in the hospital I was reading this book filled with stories of families learning that their baby has trisomy 21 and although every story was heartwarming and motivating, I noticed that every single time they were told their baby had trisomy 21, either pre or post delivery, the news was always given in an apologetic way, sometimes even followed with "you can terminate this pregnancy..."  I think this needs to stop.  I think caregivers need to give this news in just the same excited way as they give the "you're having twins!" news or what not. 

Gideon acts just like all my babies have acted.  His arms and legs kick and swim, when he's mad those arms do that cute "chorister type" wave.  When he looks around the room, you can just see him taking it all in.  He loves his binkies.  He hates his diaper dirty.  He loves so much to be held.  You hold him and he'll fall right asleep.  When I put him up to my chest, he just curls right in.  He's just like all my other babies.  Except that dang heart of his.  Ughhh, drives me crazy!

Anyways, we're doing pretty well.  When it rains, it pours though.  Our lease is up end of May and we can't sign on for another year.  We just can't.  House is just too small.  But no one wants to rent to a family with 9 kids.  Believe me, we're trying.  We're being forced almost to have to buy a house.  But to buy, we need to sell our VA house which we just put on the market 2 days ago.  So it's like we're being forced into a corner and there's no way out.  We told the kids last night that we utterly need a miracle.  Of course right after that they start fighting over who's wearing who's shoes and "she's wearing my shirt and didn't even ask!"  I was like, "guys, we need a miracle.  Acting like this is gonna get us a curse!"  My kids might make all As and Bs in school, but I don't think there are many lights on in the common sense department.

OK, it's late.  I need to give my baby his heart medicine.  Crazy.  I have a child who needs heart meds.  Blows my mind.