New Experiences

Saturday was our area's WS picnic, although Chris was unable to attend I decided to go. No worries I did not try this alone I recruited Julie, and she was more then happy to attend. We piled all the girls in my car and were off.

We pulled up to the farm outside of Baltimore where the party was located , Julie looked at me and said "I have a pit in my stomach" is she a mind reader, I said, "you have a pit..." Anyway we unloaded the car and headed for the house. I really did not know what to expect. Funny enough it was a picnic...a regular old picnic. Kids running around everywhere and people eating, drinking, and socializing. We were greeted by the host, a super cool lady. Her son Justin? I think( I am so awful with names) is a teenager with WS, maybe 14 . . . We were there all of 5 min before he looked at us and said "Ok so who has WS? I nearly choked on my gum . . . I told him that Tatum did. Then he looked at my sister and said, “does your baby have it too?" This I think caught her a little off guard but she simple replied, “No, I'm with Tatum, LOL.” We decided yesterday Tatum was totally our meal ticket:)

I meet about 10 different people with WS, three were older adults and the rest were kids. The Adults should go to Vegas with the fool the guesser game because they appeared much older then they were but super friendly. The man that I spoke to holds down a job and lives alone in an apt close to his Mom's house and the older woman I did not really get a chance to speak too but she seemed to be doing just fine. Oh yeah then there was Javier, a 24-year-old UMD student. Julie and I decided he has an innocent crush on me, he was my shadow for the afternoon, but not at all annoying me I was so flattered. He made me promise to bring Chris and his race car to the next outing.

I think I was much more observant with the younger kids there due to the stage in life that I am in. There were two little girls in particular that I just could not get enough of Nichol, 12 and Reinea, three. I think that Reinea just touched me because she was Emma's age. She was not as mature as Emma but then again Em is a very mature 3-year-old. I can't get Emma to smile like that for a camara on commandlan, how cute. This little princess was also walking and talking, I bet she has to in order to keep up with her 4 brothers. Nicole was Miss Personality, she gave me so much hope and her parents were AWESOME!!!

When I first meet Nicole, she mush have asked me 100 questions, right down to my favorite Mary Kay lipstick. She was so cute just doing what 12 year-old girls do, she even put on her lip gloss before running off to play with the boys her age, it was great. I do not necessary want my daughter to have any problems but that was not the hand I was given. I got such hope from Nicole and Justin. The little boys there were really cute too but I did not spend much time with them. They were off doing little boy things.

It was so nice to be in a group where everyone knew what you were talking about and no child was left out. Emma played with younger and older kids and it was no big deal. This was I bet one of the best things I could have done for our situation, I am much more at ease about the whole WS thing now. I was the one there with the youngest kid but I bet it is not going to be like this forever and I actually found two little girls Emma's age with WS siblings. I guess Emma is always going to have girls to play with at these functions too.

My lesson learned is everyone is different and we have to accept it. The sooner I accept it the better everyone’s life is going to be. I guess right now "I am in the happiness business.” That is all I want for my family, happiness. If acceptance brings that then right on I'm ok with it. Tatum has WS and its cool. She is my baby and I’m going to be here with Chris and Emma for the long haul. I believe we all have a wonderful life ahead of us WS or not and this is something that I am in no way going ot compromise.