31/21 - A little story for you

I can hardly believe it's already October. This year has gone by so fast. I think I say that every year, but this year has definitely been an exceptionally fast year it seems.

As some of you may know. October is National Down Syndrome Awareness month. Why do I care about Down Syndrome? Well, let me tell you a little story.

When I was 11 years old, my Mom was pregnant. When she was 24 weeks along, we found out she was pregnant with twins. We were so excited. The twins would be the 10th and 11th children in our family. From that point on, everything progressed pretty much normally for a twin pregnancy.

When my Mom was 37 weeks along, we went to the hospital and she gave birth to 2 beautiful babies. A boy and a girl. I was in the waiting room with some friends and family, and my 2 older sisters came running out to tell us both babies were born and everyone was fine. We all busted up into tears.

My dad was then told that "there was some bad news." Ok. "It looks like the little boy has Down Syndrome." Well, that is not that bad at all we thought! We didn't know much at all about DS, but quickly went to learning. My older sister Qadoshyah took it up as her project and spent her entire senior year of high school becoming an expert on Down Syndrome. She wrote a thesis as her graduation paper and went on to write an over 300 page book about Down Syndrome.

The girl was named Yophiyyah, which means The Lord is My Beauty. The boy was named Osiyyah, which means The Lord is My Maker. Osiyyah was hospitalized for 13 days, and was finally brought home.

Through Osiyyah's early months in life, there were many ups and downs. He had trouble gaining weight and had to be on oxygen for a few weeks. When he was 8 months old, we found out about a special nutritional supplement called Nutrivene-D, which is formulated for people with Down Syndrome. Within 2 weeks of him starting on that, he changed tremendously. He went from being a small, frail little boy who could not sit up. To a very plump, alert and happy baby. The changes were outstanding and to this day we are extremely thankful to have found out about Nutrivene. He learned to walk at 17 months.

"O", as we like to call him, is such a HUGE blessing to our family. Our life would be so boring without him! He brings so much joy to us. He is almost always happy and inquisitive. We often tell people we think every family should have a child with Down Syndrome, as they will really light up your world! If everyone was as happy as he is, there would be a whole lot more people smelling the roses and not as many complaints, that is for sure!

Osiyyah and his twin sister Yophiyyah are 7 1/2 years old now. They both really enjoy living on the ranch and like animals a lot. "O" really likes to help out with anything on the ranch, but really likes to help milk the goats. If he misses a milking, he tells me he missed milking "8 times!!'. It is hilarious. He likes to clean much more so than any other kid. And one of his most favorite things for me or my sister to make is fudge for him. He really enjoys dancing and singing, and gets into it when everyone else is practicing. He also, as the rest of the children in my family are, is a little "political junky" and talks about how you should vote for Ron Paul and shouldn't vote for Obama or Romney. He asks his siblings, "are you a Romney kid?" They say no. Then he tells us that he's a "Ron Paul kid". He is so smart :).

While he does have some speech issues and someone that doesn't know him typically can't understand everything he says, he can communicate with all of us just fine through his own little language.

So, that is Osiyyah's story summed up. I love him so much and my life would be so different without him.

And that is why I am blogging for National Down Syndrome Awareness month, because of my amazing little brother. Since I plan to blog every day the month of October, I hope to talk about many things related to Down Syndrome as well as my typical posts about our life. October should be a very very busy month for me, so I'll try my best to not miss a day!

See ya!

Suriyah