Welcome to Earth

If you've just dropped down from the sky, there are a few things you need to know. 
1) Tomorrow is Halloween - don't forget to dress up the kids, put out candy, and have a good time trick or treating. 
2) The day after tomorrow marks the first day of Canadian Down Syndrome Week, which runs from November 1st to 7th.  Celebrate loud.  Celebrate Proud.  Celebrate Being (CDSS's slogan).  Talk the talk and walk the walk of acceptance and inclusion.  Be a friend to a person with Down syndrome.
3) At the end of the week, our daughter Elyse will be five years old.  Okay, this is maybe only pertinent information to our friends and family, but still, it's pretty darn important.

There was a time when I didn't understand what Elyse's life meant; I wasn't sure how her diagnosis would change things, and if I could bare those changes.  Five years of having Elyse in our lives has taught me many things, but the most important one to know is this:  kids with Down syndrome want to be treated like any other kid.  They just want to be included in the every day stuff.  If you take nothing else away from my blog this 31-for-21 challenge, please let it be that.  Oh.  And never underestimate what any kid can do.  Ever.  Kids are capable of more than you think.  Set the bar high.

Teach your kids:  just because a person doesn't look the way you do, or talk the way you do, doesn't mean they don't have important things to say.  There are universal gestures of communication, such as a smile, that everyone can understand, and we all have important things to say.

Children speak a universal language of love and acceptance