Liebster Award: My Momma Stole My Blog!

I was gone for one night and in that time, my Momma hijacked my blog!  Was it "The Momma Chronicles" that was nominated for a Liebster Award by Looking Up With Down Syndrome?
http://dexterlanges.wordpress.com/

No.  It was "The Cooper Chronicles."  So, without further ado, I give you, 11 interesting facts about me....COOPER.

1.  I just started taking some steps without holding on to things.  It's really hard and honestly, I'm not sure what the big deal is because I can bear crawl so fast, Momma can't even catch me.  When I take my steps, I try to go just as fast as when I bear crawl and then I fall on my face.  The balance thing is tricky.

2.  I have more teeth than the last time we talked.  I've got two on the bottom, one giant one on the top that Auntie Annie calls my "Nanny McPhee Tooth," and two molars are coming in as we speak.  Sometimes I will be playing and all of a sudden it just hurts so bad that I start hysterically crying.  Also, I've heard that my teeth are really slow moving.  I'm not sure why but I wish they would hurry up.

3.  Lamby is my favorite toy.  It used to be Mr. Monk-Monk (my striped sock monkey) but I've moved on.  We're still friends and all but Lamby is my best friend...he's a better cuddler.

4.  I still don't like sleeping.  It's dumb.  Being awake is so much more fun.

5.  I'm really loud.  I guess I used to be this really quiet baby.  Momma is always asking, "What happened to my quiet little boy?"  He went away.  I'm here now, and I've got a lot to say.  The louder, the better....especially in the morning.

6.  I have Down syndrome.  I guess that's an interesting fact.  I still don't know what that means or why it matters but it seems like it's important to other people.

7.  I've got two brothers and two sisters who live in Chicago.  Mom says they're still my brothers and sisters even though they have a different mom.  We have the same dad though!  I get to see them every once and awhile and it's so much fun! We were just at my big sister's graduation from Valparaiso University on Sunday.  It was hot...no AC.  But it was pretty neat to see Emily walk across the stage and hear her name over the loud speakers...not so loud.  The sound system was terrible.

8.  When I said Lamby was my favorite toy, I wasn't being entirely truthful.  Lamby is my favorite toy that is actually a toy.  My favorite toy that I made up is my sock and a half empty water bottle.  Momma and Daddy are really confused as to how I can sit for 15 or 20 minutes and find endless fascination with shaking my sock.  I just love it!  If it's not that, then I shake the water in my water bottle and watch it settle.  Observing how the water moves is so cool.

9.  Purees and solids still elude me.  I'm sure you all heard about my adventures in feeding therapy.  Momma says I have to go to a different feeding therapy this summer.  I guess so...but I still don't see why I can't just keep drinking my ba-ba.

10.  I don't know how to count this high.  I've had help.

11.  Momma says that one of the up sides to having Down syndrome is that I can wear a lot of the same clothes from last summer.  Apparently, I was wearing some clothes that were a little too big last year and this year they fit perfectly.  I'm in a size 12mo and 18 mo...just in case you were wondering.

Editor's Note: Liebster Award

The Cooper Chronicles has been nominated for a Liebster Award by one of my favorite blogs.  I am so incredibly honored to be nominated by such a talented writer and friend.  Thank you so much, Looking Up with Down Syndrome!!! Please check out the blog at: http://dexterlanges.wordpress.com/

It is funny, truthful and full of heart.  My favorite post is:   http://dexterlanges.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/becoming/

There is a daunting list of things that must be done once the award has been accepted.  Some of it I'm not sure I know how to do, let alone have the time to do.  However, I am committing to it tonight...even if it takes me a long time to get it done.  

Please help me stay motivated.  Here is what I'm committing to:  

1.Thank the Liebster-winning blogger who nominated you. Link back to their blog.

2. Post 11 random facts about yourself.

3. Answer the 11 questions your nominator asked.

4. Create 11 questions for your nominees.

5. Nominate 11 blogs of 200 followers or less who you feel deserve to be noticed. Leave a comment on their blog letting them know they have been chosen.

6. Display the Liebster Award logo

So I managed to do number 1 and 6 already!  I am awesome.  I will follow the format of my nominator and take this in steps.  Tonight I give you...............

11 random facts about me!   I'm sure you're thrilled.

1,2 & 3.  I don't like leftovers, I don't like people to feel bad and my eyes are bigger than my stomach.  This can all be illustrated by one pretty weird thing that I do: I sometimes ask for a box at a restaurant and purposely leave it on the table.  I can almost never eat everything that I order.  I feel terrible guilt that either the person paying will be mad at me for wasting their money, or the sever/cook will worry that I hated their food.  So in order to avoid this question from the waitstaff:  "Was it alright?  You didn't like it?  Let me get my manager and see what we can do,"  or that look of "Seriously?  I paid $20 for that steak" I just ask for a box and then accidentally leave it on the table.   Sometimes the server actually chases me to the parking lot, "You forgot this!"  "Oh, my gosh.  Thank you.  What would I have eaten for lunch tomorrow?  Thank you."  

4.  If the box makes it home with me, I will probably leave it in the refrigerator until it gets moldy.  Gross!  Why?!  Because I feel bad throwing away food...it's wasteful.  Someone in the world is starving.  I can't throw away perfectly good food!  But moldy food can go right into the trash without guilt.

5.  I have issues.  All these little weird rules that I have sometimes make for crazy contradictions that I can't sort out.  I'm used to it but I'm sure I make no sense to the people around me.

6.  I like my contradictions and I like how they make me feel Shakespearean.  That's right Shakespearean.  

7.  I don't like drama.  Not the kind on the stage.  That drama, if done well, I love.  I'm talking about the kind that people create to make their lives more interesting.  Attention seeking behavior is like nails on a chalkboard to me.  Life presents us all with real, inescapable drama.  I have absolutely zero patience with manufactured nonsense.

8.  Before I had Cooper, I cared a lot about stupid crap.  I have not totally mellowed but I am much more likely to dismiss  things and give the benefit of the doubt to people than I ever have before.  Something about becoming Cooper's Mommy has helped me see what is important and what is not.

9.  If it's something important, I'm even more indignant about it than I ever was before I had Cooper.  I have even less patience for rudeness, cruelty, ignorance, intolerance, stupidity and injustice than I have ever had.  I believe that the combination of number 8 and 9 constitute growing up enough to really understand what it means to pick battles.  I've learned to target my energy at that which is worthy of it.  Most of the time.   But if I'm tired and/or hungry, I will still take your head off over stupid crap.  

10.  My favorite sport is college basketball.  More precisely, Michigan State basketball.  Go Green!

11.  I always wished I was a good enough writer to be one.  Steinbeck is my favorite.  East of Eden is a masterpiece but Travels with Charley is one of my favorite books (thanks to my friend Marco for introducing it to me).  I find myself thinking back to it all the time.

Stay tuned for the rest of my Liebster Award posts.   I may even get Cooper to write some...since it's his blog, you know.

Editor's Note: Justice Was Not Served

Editor's Note:

I ranted about this story on Facebook this morning, which probably isn't the best place for such a lengthy post. I am reposting with some edits for The Cooper Chronicles.

Grand Jury Rejects Criminal Charges in the Death of Robert Saylor, Man with Down syndrome

This story scares me so much. I honestly don't think the cops thought they were doing anything that would result in killing a man over a movie ticket. But, we have a long way to go with community outreach and education so that confrontations over movie tickets (and other equally pointless, stupid and ultimately harmless actions) don't occur to begin with. To me, this is a story of intolerance, abuse of power and lack of perspective. Had the movie theatre employees had some compassion, had the off duty police officers been trained with a little more sensitivity (or used the training they were given. I don't know what kind of training they receive, if any, on dealing with people with intellectual disabilities), had the bystanders in the theatre had a little backbone, this whole thing could have been avoided. Actually, had any of these people had ANY of these traits! Ultimately, who cares if a man who clearly has an intellectual disability watches the movie twice but only pays once?  Do I think he should be allowed to break all the rules just because he has Down syndrome? Absolutely not. But to allow this situation (over what? $15 max?) to escalate to the point of needing to be restrained IS the fault of the professionals. Whether serving in an official law enforcement capacity or not, they were the professionals and the authorities in the room. Ultimately, they are responsible for the proper use of that authority. While I don't necessarily feel these officers should spend the rest of their lives in prison, they should at least be held responsible for being terrible at their job. I know cops aren't social workers but there has to be training in de-escalation and there should be some minimum standard of proper perspective when dealing with situations like this. The police are the police for all of us, even those who may not understand the full ramifications of their actions and may not possess the capacity to be held equally responsible for the end result of such a confrontation.

Who I Am

Who I Am…?

I am just like you.

Just like you, I am not the sum of what I can’t do.   Can you imagine if you were defined by all the things you couldn’t do?   Would it go like this?  “Meet, Jane.  She’s not a rocket scientist.  She’ll never go to the moon.  She can’t walk on a tightrope.  She’s not a Doctor or Lawyer.  She’s just a caring person who loves and cries and laughs and breaths.  Who hugs and plays and makes your heartache.”   Who am I?  I am just like you.  I am Cooper Charles Stillman.  I am the joy you didn’t know you needed.  I am a philosopher of simplicity.  I live in the moment.  I know when you’re sad.  I make my parents crazy.  I am learning.  I am the sum of my soul.

 

Below is a link to the International Down syndrome Coalition's new video for World Down syndrome Day (Thursday, March 21).  The theme is "Who I am."  I am one of the producers of this video.  By that I mean, I gave a little bit of money and they put my name on the list.  But I'm very proud to support this project nonetheless.  Please check it out and share it and this post.

http://www.theidsc.org/2013/03/idsc-2013-world-down-syndrome-day-video.html

Trickster Part I

You know what a hipster is, right?  We might have already been through this  but just in case...According to my Momma hipsters are people who shop at Urban Outfitters and pay way too much money to look like they spent no money at all, they make their own beer and all the guys have facial hair like some weird throw back to a couple of centuries ago.  Also, she says that men should definitely not wear skinny jeans.  I am not a hipster (I can hear my mom say "Thank God" in the background.  I think she's just mad that grunge is dead.)  I am a trickster.  Unlike hipsters, I bring joy and merriment where ever I go. Below is part one of my greatest tricks :

Bottles make great puddles 

I start by choosing a time when Momma is obviously very busy and I begin to complain wildly about how hungry I am.  Whining incessantly is my typical approach to this.  If I am ignored for too long though, I will resort to full out tears.  Works every time.  Momma rushes around in the kitchen making a bottle while I encourage her to go even faster from the living room.  It's fun to see how fast she can go!  Upon her return, she puts me in my  pack n play, on my little Michigan State Pillow Pet, and hands me my bottle.  At this point, I often grunt and thrash for the full, "I'm starving" effect.  This part is critical, I eat ravenously until Momma is satisfied that I have solid control over the bottle and she walks away.  Now, if I'm actually a little hungry I might eat some but this is not the point of the trick.  I learned that the hard way.  The more you eat, the less funny the trick.  In this case, less is not more.  I wait a couple of minutes until I know that her attention is fully refocused on her activity and then I spring into action.  Silence is key to this trick because if she hears me talking, she knows I'm not eating.  So, I quietly sit up, turn my bottle upside down, give it a few shakes and watch the flow!  There's nothing like it.  I watch it run in small streams down my legs, onto the pack n play and converge into the most amazing formula puddles you have ever seen.  It makes Momma so happy that for the next few days she keeps me on her lap while I eat.  Tricks on her!  I love sitting on her lap to eat.  It's my favorite eating place and this trick works like a charm.

Chew, Chew, Spit (Or, How Much Money Can I Waste?)

As many of you know, I have been in an outpatient feeding therapy program.  I hate it there.  I don't even know why I have to go.  I eat just fine.  I love my bottles.  Apparently they aren't age appropriate.  Momma also says that beer and wine (love!) aren't age appropriate either.  I don't get it.  So, I was going to this place two times a week and it was the terrible.  They sat me in a chair and made me play with food.  All kinds of food: crumbs, pudding (disgusting! I don't do purees or anything slimy.  That's just gross.), Cheetos, and sprinkles.  They kept trying to get me to bite down on this Cheeto wrapped in gauze.  I mean, would you let some strange person wearing purple gloves shove her hands, with a gauze wrapped Cheeto, into your mouth?  I'm guessing no.  So we would fight.  There were times when I would just give up and bite the damn Cheeto because I wanted it over.   But that was never enough for these people.  They always wanted me to do it again!  Not cool.  "I did what you asked, now knock it off."  For two months, twice a week, we went to this place  and then almost every day at home (although, Momma didn't wear those creepy purple gloves) we went through the same exercises.  It was dreadful.  But I found a way to make them stop.  Fighting wasn't working so I had to come up with another strategy.  This was my plan:  I do everything they want me to do except actually eat that stuff.  I pick it up, put it in my mouth and chew the heck out of it.  This brings all the wild cheering and the videos on facebook.  But here's the trick, I spit it out.  What I found was that after eight weeks of this, Momma said, "Enough.  No more feeding therapy."  I overheard long conversations about wasting money to pay to play with food, the rapid increase of power struggles not just around the food, how I have all the steps for eating but I haven't been able to organize them into actually swallowing food and how stupid (her word, NOT mine.) she was for scheduling this in the middle of winter.  And then one day we quit.  My trick worked!  It seems as though the chewing was all she needed to see.   So now I chew my food.  Sometimes for old times sake, I play this game where I pretend like I don't want to anymore or like I've never done it before.  That always gets a laugh.  And it only cost Momma $600!

Stay tuned for Trickster Part II.  Maybe I'll do it in the form of "Top 5 Things Never To Say About ___________."  Those seem to be all the rage these days.  

It's My Birthday...Soon

Dear Readers,

I have been told that my first birthday is on Sunday.  I thought this was a good time to reflect on the first year of my life.  More importantly, I've been told by Momma that I need to seriously thank a lot of people.  She says that without you, we would never have made it through my first year.  I find this to be a little dramatic...I guess I know where I get it from.

Thank you to everyone who has babysat me, bought me presents, smiled at me, gushed over me, come to our rescue, been incredibly flexible with Momma, laughed with us, cried with us, encouraged me to keep working hard toward my goals and commented on my million photos and videos on Facebook...there have been a lot....sorry about that...I have no control over her.  She can't seem to help herself.

My first year has been a wild one.  It's been very happy and very sad.  But despite it all, you have stuck with us and kept Momma, Daddy and me going.  Not only have you kept us going but you have also kept us laughing.

Momma created a video to share with you all.  I think it's a little long but what can you do about a super proud Momma? She says she hopes you enjoy it.  You'll have to copy and paste.  The video wouldn't load and I got tired of waiting...give me a break, I'm only one year old :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlyaz-bYm2E&feature=plcp

Letter from the Battlefront

I am a fighter.  A hero you might say.  Every day I do battle with the most sneaky, hideous, evil monster known to man.  Sometimes, we fight several times a day.  If it weren't for me keeping him at bay, you would all be in peril.  He is, THE SLEEP MONSTER!! When he sneaks up on me, I am generally able to keep him back but he seems to gain strength as the day progresses.   No battles are as terrible as the ones at night.

My tactics include, but are not limited to (wouldn't want to give away all my secrets) screaming, biting (this will be more effective when I have teeth) hair pulling, hitting and sometimes giggling...just to throw him off.

He may be winning some of the battles but I feel like I'm winning the war...yawn....gotta' go.....stretch.....I can feel another attack coming....pull Momma's hair....yes, definitely!  Everyone back!  Let me handle...this....hit the Momma.......zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....snort......I'll get you next time Sleep Monster!  You haven't seen the last of Cooper Charles Stillman the Third....minus 2.  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.