What Down syndrome at 2 years is like for us

Like with any child , the 1st year to the second has huge changes!

Masons second year has had huge changes for him as well!  Hes growing by leeps and bounds! 

Mason has conquered walking
Mastered running
And can climb just about anything he can get his leg up on.... add in the super flexibility. .ahe can climb a lot!

It seems that Mason has blown  his therapist away with his great gross motor skills.  He surprises them all with how soon he walked (for a child with ds) 
And now how effortlessly he runs and climbs.

We laugh when new people on his therapy team come and are like " whoA!!"  (Yup! Proud momma) 

But as with saying with children with down syndrome. ."they are either walkers or talker"  it couldn't be any more true!!!

Yes, Mason says a few words and does signs... but compared to other kids with DS who are not walking/running... he is  far less vocal then they are! (We got a walker not a talker )

So we met with Masons team of therapists,  we turned our focus from gross motor to fine motor and our main focus ...SPEECH. 

This momma wants to give him the best chance at communication !! I want him to be able to express himself  as easily as possible.

So were bringing in our speech therapist every week and we follow her suggestions till we reevaluate each week with new plans and goals.

Nothing will hurt a mothers heart as watching your child be behind while others thrive. 

We get so excited to see mason doing super awesome and surpassing his goals on the down syndrome chart. ... but then you throw him in the mix of typical learning peers.... and I can see where he is behind.  Some days I have to hold back the tears.  To see how many words the peers his age have, makes it seem like mason is so far behind them. 

But around here we keep it as positive as possible!   So instead of crying,  this momma is pushing Mason... pushing him to learn as much as possible.   So if we have to do more therapy , we will. If I have to get more fluent in sign language,  I will.  If it means I need to set aside daily therapy time, consider it done! 

I will not sit back and do nothing ( because we haven't yet) and we will continue giving mason all the opportunities as we can !

So, to finish up ...

Besides a few setbacks in speech. .. mason acts like a typical 2 year old.

So we see where we need to improve and we will continue to make progress!

Slowly but surely is the motto this year! !!