Football Frenzy!

Well, we made it through the first real football game and Kyle is still grinning! He loves it even though he learned tonight there is another team coming after him! Bless his heart, on the first play of the game, Kyle got the ball and ran for a touchdown. Frankly I have never seen him move that fast and as his mother I know why he had that speed-he was running for his life so he wouldn't get tackled!! Here are several pictures of the touchdown!


This afternoon David was so excited about Kyle's game that he found the helmet and had to get some downs in in our living room! It is definite football frenzy in our house! Next week starts the regular season games-I will be there with bells on cheering my guts out as always:) Go Cowboys!



With my new camera lens, I got really close on this picture!

Sweet David having some after school football fun in our Steelers helmet:)

Opening drive of the game-go baby go!:) It all happened so fast, that it was hard to cheer and take pictures at the same time.

My angel faces. Several minutes after this precious angelic picture was taken, Kyle tackled David which ensued a Robinson riot!!!:)

Happy Boy-Scared Mom!

I should have known this football thing would not go away. Kyle has been talking about playing football well over a year now. Signups were last week, and I simply thought somewhere in my mind that he would see what it would be like and back out-no such luck for this worried Mommy. He came home from "uniform pickup night" with this getup on and this smile plastered to his face! He was so proud of himself:)

The next night would be the first practice. A light rain fell and I smugly thought that this first practice would put an end to this football stuff. I soon realized, however, that the rain actually made him MORE excited about this upcoming first practice. Mike took him and I watched from the sidelines as my son had the time of his life! He loved the stretching and warmup just as much as he loved the playing part. This week, however, will be his first game-I cannot wait to see if his enthusiasm grows or dims as he comes into contact with an opposing team. In the meantime, I will be in the laundry room trying to figure out where all these pads go in this pair of tiny white pants!:)

Hard words

http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/opinion/commentary.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-08-17-0064.html

As some of you may know, there was a movie released by Dreamworks entitled Tropic Thunder recently that uses the word "retard" over and over again. A young man who is 26 years old with Down Syndrome wrote an editorial response to the movie in the Richmond times Dispatch. It is amazing that he could so eloquently put to words how that movie has affected him. I have (hopefully) provided a link to his article!

I talked with my friend, Lynn tonight who has precious 6 year-old Caroline with Down Syndrome. We both feel that this article that is so well written by this young man, will forever change us. He speaks of the loneliness that accompanies having a disability. One of the things that Lynn and I have often spoken about since we met three years age is that Caroline and David will have such a fun, full life. Lynn and I are very involved with our babies and frankly we will make sure that they will have an awesome life. Until this young man spoke through his article it never occurred to either Lynn or myself that Caroline or David could experience loneliness or feel the discrimination that is still unfortunately part of our society.

When Lynn and I talked by phone tonight about it, I told her that I so wanted to post this article on the blog, but I couldn't find the words to talk about it. His words will forever be in my head as David continues to grow and thrive. Quite bluntly, I guess Lynn and I both fell for the happy and jolly stereotype that often accompanies people with DS. To hear this young man speak of the opposite is really hard to read.

I know that God has an awesome plan for both Caroline and David, and that they are here by no accident. Both of these precious redheads have taught me more about life, empathy, true love, and joy than I could EVER learn elsewhere. They are a true litmus test for someone's character. I feel honored to have them in my life, but it is still hard to read the words of a young man that has lived a life with a disability.

Read the article for yourself (hopefully if I provided you the link!) and see how you feel about it. As a Mom of a precious one with Down Syndrome it was a tough read, but also a challenge for me and you to help this society to be more accepting and less discriminatory of people with any type of disability. I feel that God has placed these precious ones in our midst to teach us what life is truly meant to be like. Just like Jesus does not disciminate in His love for us, we should never hold back love and acceptanace from others.