Back At It - Quirky

Today is the second day of Down Syndrome Awareness month.  I shared an old blog post from 2006 listing 21 facts about Down Syndrome on my Facebook page yesterday and realized "I MISS blogging!!"  I was fascinated to read something I wrote six years ago that still rings so very true today yet felt there is so much more that I could add to it.  Blogging has taken a back seat to Facebook with the ease of just sharing a few words and a photo without much thought going into it.  Those posts get lost and are often not even seen by very many. For this reason I am going to start recording our family journey on this blog again.

Today is our school districts annual Homecoming football game.  Today the kids show their team spirit by wearing school colors of Red, White & Black.  I had the perfect shirt for the twins to wear, their Challenger baseball jersey:

Cute and comfy right? One quirk of the boys that drives this mama crazy is refusing to wear certain clothing.  I don't think its necessarily a texture issue, its more of a strong willed boy thing.  I shall look at it as good trait because they can and will communicate very strongly to make their wishes known.  I have donated several cute pieces of clothing because they flat out refused to wear it.  No sweaters, no sweatshirts, no sports clothing.  From experience now I know that I might as well bag it up and give it away at first refusal because it will not change the next time I pull it out of their dresser.  Deep Breath in.... it will be OK!

So I went back to their dresser and pulled out shirts I knew they loved and had to get some cute twin photos for today's blog.

Our daily view of twins!

Black shirt = Isaac,   Red shirt = Caleb

Tell me this photo does not make you smile

Of course the third photo just has to be blurry.  I never, ever, get Isaac smiling and there it is!!

So what's my Down Syndrome Awareness teaching for the day?  My boys are Quirky.  They are very strong willed and sometimes as their mama I need to focus on the positive of every behavior no matter how difficult that may be.  I have learned a long time ago with these boys that its not my wants but theirs that often win over.  Looking back on the issue at hand, its really no big deal that they would not wear a shirt I picked out for them, I'm just happy they go to school everyday with a choice of clothing to wear and for that we are blessed!

So tell me, are you typical kids Quirky?  Do you feel kids with Down Syndrome tend to be more Quirky than others?  Is this an Autism behavior? Did you smile at photo #3?