One of my pet peeves is when I see news articles that refer to Down syndrome as a “disease.” Most of the time I let it slide and just fume a little about it inside, but this week a story popped up in my reader and I couldn’t resist leaving a comment about the headline – “UC Davis to study new treatments for fatal childhood diseases”. I took a screenshot of the page (shown below) and left a comment.
Because it just wasn’t acceptable to me to let it go – Down syndrome is not fatal, not a disease, and not limited to childhood.
So as I was typing these snippets I decided to check the article again and see (a) if the comment I left was published, because when I submitted I got a response that it would have to be approved, and (b) if the headline had been changed based on my comment. The answers are yes and yes, but I don’t think the revision is all that stellar, either.
Oh, well.
As promised, I give you video of Wednesday night’s bike expedition. More on the bike next week – in short, it’s so awesome that I’ve already finished a post about it.
Recently, I asked my friend Sarah whether or not she drives (Do you read her yet? If you have a kid with CP, you should!). I don’t even remember why I brought it up, but she graciously answered my questions and even went a step further and wrote a full post about it.
I don’t want to spend too much time on the whole Abercrombie & Fitch debacle, but Kristen Lamb had another great piece this week on the dustup. Worth the read just for the entertainment value!
School is (almost) out for summer – do you know what that means? Time to get serious about potty training. I have been dreading this event (and procrastinating for months…) but I can’t put it off any longer. He’s had a few successes, but mostly he just likes to sit on the potty for a few minutes, give me a gigantic grin, then move on to other things.
I think it’s time to pull out the big guns – moving the potty to the living room and going pants-less in the yard. Is there a patron saint of potty training? I need some intercession. STAT.
And just a reminder about Seven Snippets: I’m discontinuing them effective this week. The linky tool is gone, but if you want to keep on snippeting you can link them in the combox.
Have a great weekend!
This post was inspired by and is linked to Conversion Diary‘s 7 Quick Takes.
The bike video is awesome! I love how she figured out how to get more power behind the pedals when she started to stall towards the end.
Re potty-training: Check out “Toilet Training in Less Than a Day” by Azrin and Foxx. Method was originally developed for brain injured and developmentally delayed children. I used it with all 5 of my (typical) children around age 2. I wrote about it here: http://matir-asurim.blogspot.com/2012/08/ot-potty-training-mater.html
Oh my goodness, this video just makes me grin. What a great memory.
I made it to #4! As uncomfortable as that post was to write I’m glad I did it.
I’m also jumping into the adventures of potty-training…I love your comment about it on #6! Carson has surprised me by using the potty, even the big potty, whenever we change him or ask him to, we just haven’t reached the stage where he knows when to go on his own. I have a handout from the autism clinic, which I thought was useful at first, but now that the actual act is not the problem, I’m at a loss again! Fun times…
I am SOOO with you on potty training. And good for you on 1 and 2. Argh.
Beautiful video.
I feel the same way about autism, it’s not a disease and not something to be cured!!! Just like Down Syndrome kids need extra help to learn, autistics need extra help with social skills and language. But not a cure! Good for you for saying something.
You may like this blog on motherhood: http://lionofdesign.blogspot.com/