SysterSmisk går ut offentligt med att hon gillar Darin och hatar Takida, två gånger. Darin, som haft den goda smaken att hålla sig undan offentligheten ett bra tag, försöker sig nu på någon slags comeback genom att göra en cover. Jaha. Och inte vilken cover som helst, utan han väljer en från skitbandet Coldplay (med en kroniskt förkyld sångare, därav namnet). Som att vi inte fyllts till kräkgränsen av denna låt ska vi nu plågas ihjäl igen, IGEN! Denna gång med tandställnings-tönten Darin bakom mikrofonen. Det går utför.

En dålig dag kan faktiskt Takida få till och med mitt skägg att resa sig. Vilket är mer än vad man kan säga om tönten Darin.

ASL. Yell. Signs. Fef. Scream. Swingers. Team. Family. Good game. Win. North Division Champions. Hoarse. Mashed potatoes.

NINGUNA PELICULA DE CAMPANELLA HA PASADO DESAPERCIBIDA, Y MUCHO MENOS ESTA, DONDE AL DRAMA Y A LA COMEDIA DE SUS ANTERIORES PELICULAS LAS UNIO Y LAS PUSO JUNTAS PARA LOGRAR ESTA OBRA QUE ESTA BATIENDO RECORDS TANTO EN ARGENTINA COMO EN ESPAÑA.

BASICAMENTE ES UN DRAMA, Y DURO, PERO MUY BIEN INTERCALADO CON ESCENAS QUE DESATAN LA CARCAJADA A CARGO DE UN IMPRESIONANTE FRANCELLA, QUIEN JUNTO A DARIN LLEVAN LA PELICULA. LOS VIAJES EN EL TIEMPO ESTAN MAGISTRALMENTE PUESTOS EN SU LUGAR, COMO YA HABIA HECHO CON LA EXCEPCIONAL SERIE DE TV VIENTOS DE AGUA, Y PESE A SU DURACION UNO NO SE DA CUENTA DEL TIEMPO TRANSCURRIDO, AUNQUE PODRIA HABER SIDO MAS CORTA. NI HABLAR DEL PLANO SECUENCIA LOGRADO EN EL ESTADIO DE HURACAN, UNA JOYA DEL CINE VERNACULO.

ENTONCES ES UNA PELICULA PARA IR A VER SIN PENSAR, YA QUE NO TE VA A DEFRAUDAR.

Well, that last post took a life of it’s own, and ended up about adoption more than Darin.
But Darin is not adoption. And Darin is not Down syndrome.

Darin is AWESOME!
From the start, Darin was the sweetest little man. He didn’t ask for much, but always offered a smile.
When he was 3 months old, we all got a cold, and he ended up with pneumonia. He had to go on oxygen, I.V.’s, sleep with bi-pap machine… and he was SO easy about it all. He would actually stop crying for a procedure in the hospital if you sang to him – mostly “itsy bitsy spider”. We ended up spending all but a week of 3 months in the hospital before he came home with his oxygen.
Darin went on and off oxygen for most of his first year, but he never acted like the tubing was a problem.

All of that is pretty ancient history now…
Darin is now 4 year, 4 months… developmentally, he’s in his TERRIBLE TWO’s. He isn’t so much terrible with tantrums. It is all about MISCHIEF. He is so mischievous!
Darin’s main mischief involves climbing everything. He climbs on the table to dance, he climbs on the bathroom counter to get a toothbrush (which he loves!), he climbs on the bookshelf to get a DVD (which I hate!). He also loves to unload my refrigerator. Since he can’t talk very much, and what he does say is not clear, he just brings items to me – jars of mayonnaise, hotdogs, apple juice, and EGGS!
But to make up for it, he is really developing his entertainer personality. He is figuring out what makes us laugh, and he does it as much as possible. When he thinks he is doing something cute, he headbangs while spinning around. The first time he did this, he was wearing a long “Gabriella” wig… so he looked like a butt-rocker!

Here’s one of my favorite pictures, Darin making Valentine’s choc-dipped strawberries for me!
Thought you might like to see Darin with his tummymama, Lonnie

My job for the past 4 years has been case management for a State-program for people with disabilities. I work for a non-profit agency, not the State of Texas. We are the contracted communicators between the people & the government.

Arabella got on the same program I work for (called CLASS) after 5yrs 3months on the waiting list in 2007.
Darin got on a similar program in Feb 2009…

So I’m constantly learning more about both sides – government & the people – of the funding & services.

In an attempt to organize and share the info, I’m working on a website…
I need feedback, reviews and questions. It’s impossible to see your own blind spots.

There’s a button on the sidebar:
Texas Medicaid Waivers Explained

Please be gentle, but specific in your critic… If I put too much info, left gaps, etc.

I realized I’ve never posted on my Darin.
I need to do that.
He is important.

The story of Darin joining our family is nothing short of a miracle.
From the time Arabella was born (2001), Joel and I started talking about adopting another child with Down syndrome. Down syndrome just brought such joy to our lives.
So, from time to time, we would mention this to friends who were also adoption minded, saying things like, “some day we are going to find another little girl to adopt that can be best friends with Arabella” or “when we get to Russia, we will find a child with Down’s in an orphanage and sneak them back in our suitcase.”
But we were DEEEEEEP in debt from the first year of Arabella’s life… when we responded to having an income of $800/month by maintaining the same lifestyle of eating out and shopping, by using credit cards.
So adoption was a pipe dream. Big talk.

In April/May 2005, my little brother Tim was heading off to Colorado Springs to work at The Dale House, so Joel and I went to his “sending off” service at Ecclesia. In typical mom-fashion, I spent the service in the foyer with Holden and all the other mom-toddler couples. A friend, Amy, had just adopted 8 months earlier through New Life, an agency where Chris & Robbie Seay’s mom, Cindy, is the nurse.
I decided to talk big again. This time, in front of Amy.

The next week, New Life called Amy, and all their “adoptive families” (those with adopted children or waiting to adopt) to ask if anyone would consider adopting a baby with Down syndrome – she was going to be born in a month.

Amy called me with 2 questions:
1. What resources would be available to her family if they decided to adopt this baby girl? Would they receive SSI, tuition assistance at the Rise School?
2. Would we be interested in adopting?

I told her all I knew about resources, and laughed at the suggestion of US adopting… “Adoption is expensive, right?”
Amy said, “If you are interested at all, call New Life. They will work with you.”

So, I called. And they said, “We will send you a preliminary info packet. If you return it to us, we will talk again.”

Now, something you may not know about me is I am a paper-organizer… well, pretty much an organizer in general. And I DON’T LOSE PAPERS.

But I lost the packet New Life sent to me. Within the week of talking to Amy and getting it in the mail, I lost it.
Figured it must be a sign… a sad sign that this wasn’t the time for us to adopt a baby.

But I was wrong. Cuz New Life didn’t wait for the packet… they actually called us back. They said that out of all of their families, they did not have anyone to offer the birth family… if we weren’t interested.
Wow! But what about the money.
“Don’t worry about the money. God will provide it, and you can pay it out over time.”
So Joel and I took the next day to pray, going for coffee together after work. Our conversation started with, “So, we could change this part of our schedule, and use this resource…” We both knew that the question wasn’t “should we?” but “how can we?”

Then we called New Life back.
And another family had come into the equation. A couple came in to pursue adoption, and was willing to adopt a child with Down syndrome. So, the birth family would get to choose between us and this other couple.

Great… I thought this was really going to happen… but now, I’m not so sure…

On Friday, June 10, New Life asked and told us these things:
1. We will be giving both profiles to the birth family to choose from… they normally have as long as they want to decide, but due to #2, they would only have til Sunday.
2. Another baby with Down syndrome, a baby boy, has come into the equation. He was born today, and his mom is just now looking into adoption. He is 7 weeks premature, so she thought she had time to plan. Can we present your profile to this birth mom, if you are not chosen by the first birth family (with the baby girl yet to be born)?

We said, “Yes” to the question, but in many ways, our heart was set on the baby girl… mainly, since we had had 2 weeks to think & pray for her, and because Arabella is a girl with Down syndrome.

I remember vividly that Sunday, June 12. I was shopping with Erin, a friend of a friend, for my friend’s shower. And Sara, from New Life, called… I was away from Joel… I was sitting in the parking lot of Party City… and Sara said, “They picked the other family.”
It didn’t feel like there was a little boy out there. It felt like REJECTION. It felt like we were laid along side another couple, and they were worthy and we were not.
Erin was great. As weird as it is to cry with an almost-stranger, she made it okay.

But telling Joel was bad. Joel has been through A LOT of rejection in his life. And he gives his heart away FULLY. He had given his heart to the little baby girl with Down syndrome still growing in the birth mama’s tummy.
And he didn’t have any reason to fall in love all over again, with heartbreak so recent.

I’m more cerebral. I hadn’t touched her. She was a beautiful idea. She was a dream. But she could easily be morphed into a boy… (comparable to finding out at your 20 week ultrasound that the baby you have called “she” is “he”… just as exciting!)
So, I gave Joel some space to adjust to the idea, and took the kids outside to play.

Our kid’s names are really important to us.

• Arabella is our “Beautiful Altar” of Grace – a reminder of worship to a gracious Lord would gave us more than we could imagine, and nothing we deserved in our pre-marital conception.
• Holden Luke is our “Deep Valley” of “Light” – a deep place of the Lord to sustain him through a serious life of ministry and siblings with differences.

In Joel’s attempt to open his broken heart to the baby boy born only 3 lb 4 oz that Friday, he looked up his given name – a name we were not required to keep…

• Darin Michael – “A precious present” “who is like God”

The battle was over. Joel’s heart was softened by a name, a name planned by God, held in the traditions of his birth mother.

We didn’t get to meet Darin until he was 11 days old.
And it was complicated.
We met his birth mom and the social worker at a McDonald’s, while Darin rested safely in the NICU at Clear Lake Hospital. (Random note: Joel’s sister, Alyssa, had a baby boy in Clear Lake Hospital on the SAME DAY as Darin.)
We tried to say and do everything just right so his birthmom would love us, entrust us with her son, and agree with us on the openness of the adoption. Things went pretty well until we all went to the hospital to visit Darin.
The social worker stopped us at the door to the NICU. “Only one name can be on record as the family, so you need to decide NOW who is going to be on there.”
Lonnie, Darin’s birthmom, was shocked. She had met us 1 hour ago, and now someone was asking her to decide on us.
She started crying, said she wasn’t ready to decide, that she wanted to be able to visit him while he was save in the hospital… couldn’t we all visit him?
“No.” Either she could. Or we could.
I was so MAD! I couldn’t believe that this pressure was being put on her in the middle of her hardest situation.

Eventually, all three (gasp!) of us, Lonnie, Joel and I, were able to visit Darin together. He fit in the palm of Joel’s hand. Lonnie says that the look in Joel’s eyes told her that he loved Darin like she did.

Lonnie decided that night that she would allow us to adopted Darin. But she didn’t see any reason she shouldn’t be able to visit him until his was done growing the in the hospital.

This was totally God’s providence… for me and for our future.

• You see, I love Texas Children’s Hospital. I have lived there for a good portion of my motherhood… and I had planned on getting Darin transferred there, come hell or high water, whatever string pulling it took…
• I had also planned on spending 24 hours per day at the hospital with Darin, as I had with my Arabella.

Both of these things would have taken ALL my parenting energy. Problem: I already had 2 kids… who still needed a mom.
Since Lonnie was the “parent” on record, I was only able to visit with her.

• I spent 2 weeks getting to know the person I share (gladly!) the title of “mom” with.

From day 12 through day 25 of Darin’s life, Lonnie and I would arrange a time to visit, and sit at Darin’s bedside together. Since he mostly laid there, or ate while we fed him, we talked alot. I learned most of Lonnie’s life story, and we really bonded.

Then on Tuesday, July 5, 2005, we brought Darin home!

Random adoption follow-up:
With New Life’s open adoption, you have several minimum requirements:
1. Keep 1 of the names the parent’s give as part of the permanent name = we kept the whole thing as it was.
2. Send pictures monthly for 6 months.
3. Meet with birthmom once, 6 months after placement.
4. Send pictures yearly for 18 years.

Any other openness is voluntary and encouraged. New Life will be the middleman for mail & meetings as long as you want them to.

We didn’t see Lonnie until the 6 month post-placement visit. She looked really nervous about it… we met at a McDonald’s again, so the bigger kids could play.
I told her at this point to call me anytime she wanted to meet, and we would arrange to meet her. I met her at our church, my parent’s house, my in-law’s house for about 3 years – mostly our church because we were there at a set time each week, so she could call an hour before and say she was coming.
She came to each of Darin’s birthday parties.
Then last year, she called on a Sunday I stayed home from church with a sick kid, and decided to just tell her to come to my house. Now she just comes here every 2-6 weeks. It’s awesome!

Recently my family and I slipped away for a few days to go see may parents, brothers and their families up in Sacramento. I was looking forward to catching up with them and spending some time just chilling. On Wednesday night my mom took all the girls, 10 of them to Disney on Ice, while us guys decided to do something a little more manly.

We decided to go to a place called Sky High – it is an indoor trampoline place that is pretty cool. I should of known I was in trouble when I had to sign a form waiving my right to sue if I got injured. I felt like a kid in a candy store. There were trampolines connected everywhere. It was fun, for awhile!

They had a section where you could play dodgeball and I was on FIRE!! We played that for nearly an hour then decided to go back to the area where there were trampolines on the wall and all over the floor. I thought I would give it one more try and took off jumping from one trampoline to the next chasing after my 13 year old nephew. Needless to say I landed on the third trampoline and my ankle decided to go a different direction than I planned on going. I messed it up pretty bad. In fact the doctor said it would of been better if I broke it instead of spraining it the way I did.

With all of that in mind I have discovered something that is pretty cool. For the first time in my life I am actually able to use crutches the way they are designed to be used. And it is all thanks to the i-LIMB. I picked up my crutches the other day and just started laughing because of how easy it is to use with the i-LIMB on.

Finding new and useful ways to use my prosthesis makes each day an adventure. I haven’t posted anything in a while on this blog but thought this would be something others would like to hear about. Here is a picture of me, the bum foot, crutches and the i-LIMB. Pretty cool the way this thing has helped in my life.

I continue to enjoy the opportunities this new appendage has brought into my life and I look forward to more ahead on the “journey.”

By the way, make sure you head over to Thank You Mr. Jenkins to order your copy of my new children’s book. Your family is going to love it.

Adios,

DS

A new version of popstar Darin’s song “What If” is out and around the internet!
The albumversion is taken from his latest studioalbum “Flashback”.

http://rnbxclusive.com/2009/10/30/darin-feat-david-jassy-what-if-new-version/