I received a couple of e-mails soon after I blogged my previous post, asking me if I was OK.

Yes, I am fine. Am I angry? Nope. Just tired, I suppose. I just want people to stop telling me that Edry doesn’t look like he has Down syndrome, or that he is special, or that he “brings good luck” (“bawa tuah” as you would say it in Malay), or that I am strong, or things like that which I’m lately prone to categorize as prejudiced crap.

Down syndrome has nothing to do with looks. That’s not what us parents are concerned with. It’s the health risks associated with having Down syndrome is what worries us.

Why does having Down syndrome make him special? What about his other brothers? Each and every one of my sons is special.

What’s with this “bawa tuah” anyway? If you’re saying that Edry is fortunate to be healthy, then yeah. Otherwise, isn’t this undermining his older brothers? Are Eric, Joel and Ezra going to bring me trouble? In any case, I don’t believe in luck.

Me, strong? Forget it. That’s undermining other parents, too, you know.

I’m laughing inside now. You might think that anything you say to me would insult me

You know what things I don’t mind talking about? You can ask me what Down syndrome is, if you don’t know. You can ask me how it felt when I first found out about Edry’s diagnosis. You can ask about Edry’s health. You can ask me how I’m coping. You can ask how you can help get involved with assisting people with special needs. You can ask me about how I’m addressing Edry’s needs and where to get help.

Life is different, yet it remains the same. I’m not in denial of his abilities, but the fact is, he’s just like my other kids I have to take care of. Really. It’s not easy, but it’s not hard, either. It’s as challenging as raising Eric, Joel, and Ezra, you know?

It’s the uncertainty that scares me, not living it.

So if you’re not sure what to say to me, just smile. Or ask me how Edry’s doing (to which my standard response would be, “He’s healthy, thank you,” with a dash of smile… unless he is sick, of course). Or ask me about the weather for all I care. If you’re really curious, tell me that you are, and I’ll do the rest of the talking

(I scheduled this post to a later date, so this update might actually be a few weeks off the original timeline)

It has been three weeks since I used the baby sign language book I just purchased. I only watched the DVD once. I haven’t opened the quick guide that comes with it. Ezra and especially Joel absolutely loved the little baby signs book for the pictures. However, one time Joel was holding the book and somehow managed to get his face sliced off a bit from the sides of the book, sort of what you get with a paper cut. I decided to put the books away for a while, but I’ll be putting them out again some time later.

As for the signs themselves, it’s still a learning stage for all three of us. Currently I’m focusing on only a few signs that I think are critical to lessen Ezra’s meltdowns. Those are drink, eat, milk, bath and finish/all done. I haven’t seen one indication from either Joel or Ezra so far. I’m not so worried about Joel now. His articulation is getting better. Ezra still gets frustrated when I can’t read what he wants. I showed and repeated the baby signs to him, to which he doesn’t respond. Then when he wails, of course my stress levels go up, and I stress out quite easily.

He does try to speak a few words, like mommy, habis (finish), daddy, and a few more, but not the other important words like milk, drink and eat. I guess I’ll have to wait a couple more months to see if I can communicate better with Ezra using the baby sign language.

The daycare centres must have mastered the art of teaching babies how to hold their own bottles. Eric and Joel were sent to daycare centres when they were infants and I was working full time, so Eric learnt to hold his bottle when he was 3 months old, and Joel when he was 4 months old.

Being unemployed, I was fortunate that I could take care of Ezra at home and not send him to a daycare centre, not even one day. Ezra is 6 months old now, and I still have to hold his bottle. Propping his bottle with his blankie only helps when he’s sleepy and less animated.

Imagine how much household chores and blogging can be done when both your hand are free…gosh, I wonder how the the daycares do it?

My kids are at the ages where hugs are still abundant — they love being hugged and getting hugs. Eric would come to me for his big boy hug at random times, especially when he’s tired. Joel demands one every morning, noon, and night with such gusto that sometimes I would almost fall back as he run towards me and jumped, expecting me to catch him every time (do I have a choice not to?). When he’s not too excited, he’ll just calmly sit on my lap, grab my arms around him, and he’ll hum “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”. Ezra… well, he’s still a baby, but what baby doesn’t like to be hugged? Ezra will either put his head on my shoulder, or be most alert, smiling and babbling himself away.

There will come the day when giving a hug to Mommy and Daddy becomes more and more sporadic, somewhat of an embarrassment, not to be given publicly. But that’s a long time away. I hope. I’ll take things one day at a time.

It so makes my day when I see a smile on my kids’ face, even so when they were still babies. Ezra is just a generous bundle of smiles and giggles these past month; it’s like a magic medicine that takes all my tiredness away just by looking at his happy face. I just need to look him in the eyes while I talk and he’ll start cooing, then smiling and even laugh a little. My mom gets a kick out of babysitting Ezra, because in this way she can talk the whole hour without worrying whether Ezra would be bothered with the noise!

It sometimes makes me forget that Ezra has the loudest cry compared to his big brothers, that even our pediatrician had to agree as he examined Ezra while he was still one day old!