...Enough smart people...

The scene: Story time at the library

The characters: Librarian, grandmother w/2 grandsons, Kayla & me (small group today!)

Kayla was all over the place at story time today - just didn't want to sit still; thank goodness it was such a small group. She sat on the grandmother's lap, tried to hug one of the boys, hugged the librarian...you get the picture.

After the 2 stories have been read the grandmother commented on how active Kayla was, must keep me busy, bet I can't take my eyes off her from the moment she's awake in the morning etc.

Then she asks me, "Does she learn pretty well?" *I may not have that word-for-word, but "learn" and "well" were in the sentence.

Me, surprised by the question, "yes she does."

Librarian, "Does she have Down syndrome?"

Me, "yes"

Grandmother, "Oh I could tell she did. It looks like she doesn't have it too bad though. Do you know how severe it is?"

Me (caught off guard) "well she's only 2..." What I wanted to keep saying was something to educate that Down syndrome itself isn't "severe" or not - there are not varying degrees of the syndrome - you have it or you don't. And Kayla has it in every cell of her body. Now each person with Down syndrome is affected somewhat differently - some have health problems, some don't etc...just like everyone in the typical population are all different.

But before I could think to say anything else the librarian said, "And there is such a difference of severity and with the learning disabilities. One thing I've learned (she made it sound like she "learned" this at some conference or something and that it was really important) is that people with Down syndrome are 1) stubborn and 2) loveable. This world has enough smart people in it, what we need are more people like that - who are good huggers." Ok I'm sure she was meaning this in a good way. She was probably meaning the world could use more compassionate, caring, good-hearted individuals, which I agree with! But couldn't she have said that instead of saying the world has enough smart people? Was it supposed to be some sort of compliment?

And there I sit saying nothing when I should be educating and advocating! Why oh why can't I speak up and say what's on my mind? Why can't I step out of my comfort zone? I just kind of let the comment go and we went to do our craft.

Working on the craft I kept thinking when the grandmother asked if she learns well I should have said she can recognize all the letters in the alphabet. I just felt like I had to prove something now, to show that yes she CAN learn. I wanted to change whatever opinions they had. We were putting eyes on the bunnies we were making and the librarian was asking Kayla where her eyes were, of course she only pointed to those googly eyes instead of her own. So again, feeling the need to just prove something I said, "Kayla where's your nose?" (she points to her nose), "where's your elbow?" (I have to get that one on video cause it's so cute to hear her say it) and she pointed and said it. The grandmother made some comment about "oh she is learning so well" and I said, "yeah she can even recognize the letters of the alphabet." Gee do you think she was impressed someone with Down syndrome actually learned her letters? (yes I'm being sarcastic.)

So on the way home I kept thinking about the comment, "we have enough smart people in the world..." Ok just what is that supposed to mean anyway? Is my daughter not smart because she has Down syndrome? No I don't have rose-colored glasses on, no I'm not being naive, no I'm not delusional. I know most people with Down syndrome fall into the "mild to moderate" range on the IQ scales. But there are actually individuals with Down syndrome who don't fall into the "below average" IQ range. But that's beside the point.

There are many ways you can be "smart" and it doesn't have to be based on IQ #s. You can be 'book' smart, 'street' smart, 'people' smart etc. So how smart is "smart enough"? And what does it all matter anyway?

The more I was thinking about her comment the more I wish I had thought to say,

Well Kayla is smart in her own right too you know. She's only 2.5 yrs old but she's been "smart" enough to:
learn her letters,
know the animal sounds for dog, cat, owl, sheep, snake, cow, horse, duck and can identify those plus many more other animals in books,
learn 100+ words in sign language,
identify different foods in picture books,
figure out to pull her little chair up to my computer desk to climb on it to reach her crayons (to be blogged about in a future post!)
to put puzzles back together,
to put shapes in a shape sorter,
to point to at least 17 body parts (head, hair, eyes, nose, ears, mouth, elbow, knee, belly, back, toes, arm, hands, fingers, tounge, teeth, cheeks)
to know where the "good" snacks are kept (i.e. crackers and cookies!),
to know which shoes are hers, mine, and her daddy's
to start recognizing colors,
to know the difference between the DVD covers of "Signing Time", "Your Baby Can Read" & "Boz"
to know the difference between happy and sad faces,
to do hand motions to "Itsy Bitsy Spider", "If You're Happy & You Know It", "Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes", "Patty Cake", "Row, Row Row You're Boat," "Ring Around the Rosy", & "Rock A Bye Baby"
to identify/say 7 articles of clothing (socks, shoes, diaper, pants, shirt, coat & hat)

I really could go on and on about all this little girl of mine has learned.

Do you think spending a day with Kayla would show her that she's much more than a good "hugger" and so are all people with Down syndrome? That there are more to their personalities then being "stubborn" and "loveable"?