Early Mornings

Admiring his new shoes

Daylight saving started here over the weekend. I know a lot of people don't like it, but I love daylight saving. Sometimes it can be tricky to get babies and young children to adjust to going to bed while it's still light outside, and I was hoping we wouldn't have too much trouble with Felix. His bedtime is usually 7pm, so I decided that, after the hour change, we would split the difference and put him to bed when the clock said 7.30pm (half an hour earlier than his body clock would think it was). He was great. He has gone to bed, and straight to sleep, with no problems at all which I was very thankful for. Tonight we brought it back to 7pm again and he fell asleep easily.

Getting up in the mornings can be hard when daylight saving first starts. I was pretty excited, because Felix usually gets up at 5.30am and I was looking forward to him staying in the same routine, but having the clock read 6.30am instead of 5.30am. Unfortunately, it soon became obvious that Felix hasn't been told how daylight savings works. He is still waking up at 5.30am and unfortunately, for Mummy and Daddy, our body clocks are still telling us that it's only 4.30am!! Sigh! At least seeing his precious, smiling little face peeking over the top of his cot, makes the early mornings that little bit easier.

Can't stop touching them

I put shoes on Felix for the first time today. I figured he was stable enough on his feet, and walking everywhere instead of crawling, so I wanted to see how he would go. He loved his shoes. I likened him to Derek Zoolander as he strutted up and down the hallway, stopping to touch his shoes every now and again. He paced backwards and forwards, and checked himself out in the mirror. It was adorable. He has always loved trying on clothes (usually mine or Nathan's), and has been attempting to put on his own socks lately but I think shoes might become his new 'thing'. He didn't like it when I had to take them off so he could have his morning sleep.

I've forgotten to write some facts about Down Syndrome on the last couple of blogs, and since it's Down Syndrome Awareness month I promised myself I would, so here is today's fact about people with Down Syndrome. The first is that you either have Down Syndrome or you don't. You can't have Down Syndrome 'a little bit', and you certainly can't 'catch it'. Down Syndrome occurs at conception. Instead of there being 26 chromosomes in each cell, there are 27. In the case of Trisomy 21 (which accounts for 95% of people with Down Syndrome, and is what Felix has), it is the 21st chromosome which has a third copy, hence the name 'Trisomy 21'. There are two other types of Down Syndrome, which are quite rare. One is Mosaicism (only a few percent of people with Down Syndrome have this type), in which not every cell in the body has the extra third chromosome.  The third type is called Translocation, which only occurs in a few percent of people with Down Syndrome and is the only form of Down Syndrome which can be hereditary. People with any of the three different types are still said to have Down Syndrome.

Another fact I found interesting, while reading up on Down Syndrome when I was pregnant with Felix, is that people with Down Syndrome generally only have a mild to moderate intellectual disability. In my ignorance, I always assumed it would be classed as 'severe' (I knew nothing about Down Syndrome). Felix has proved to us over and over again that he has a whole lot more 'abilities' than 'disabilities'.