Driving me nuts! No its not Justin :-)

I'm not exactly sure what brought on this little funk today but I am totally iterated tonight. As you can see I have a link to the author of Paint the Octopus Red on the sidebar of my blog and figured out yesterday how to link it to her website/blog. This has been one of my favs that I discovered when looking for books for Rex to help explain Ds. I love books and since discovering that Riley would have Ds have been on a mission to find any good books not only on the subject of Ds but also books that have pictures of kids with Ds. Maybe it is because children with Ds have such distinctive physical characteristics that I have been so insistent on finding books for Riley with pictures of children that look like him. Yes, I know that he doesn't care and I know that Rex doesn't think twice about it but wouldn't it be nice if all kids had access to books that features of all different abilities. I have found a couple books but for the most part books I find have pictures of children from 1970 or before. Seriously no wonder people can't get past the stereotype of the bowl haircut and goofy glasses. My friend Kacey jokes that she was sure her daughter didn't have Ds when she was born, she just didn't look like she did. Kacey laughs that she probably was looking for the bowl haircut and thick glasses and since Ella wasn't born with those things she must not have IT. My friend Rebecca gave me a catalog from Woodbines that is all books about and for kids with special needs. I joked that it wasn't trendy to have a child with Ds and if we wanted the cool books we needed to have autism. I mean no offense by that because I know that autism is scary and confusing and there are so many variables that parents need resources, but seriously when you go into the local Barnes and Nobel and in the HUGE bookstore there is one tiny four foot section of books on special needs and 5 of the 6 shelves in the section are about autism it is a bit frustrating. That leaves 1 shelf for all other Syndromes and usually 1 or 2 books on Down syndrome. The only books I have I found online or had to special order. Nothing like making you feel even more SPECICIAL by having to wait for your books when you really just want to go in, browse and pick up something fun.

There really is a point to all of this grumbling. I have come to the realization that we are just going to have to create our own. When I say we I mean me and who ever else I can rope into helping me. How hard could it be to write a children's book right. OK so I know it isn't just magic and ta da you have a book but I do think I could find something to write about and then illustrate with pictures of children that are from this decade. I'm sure Kacey will help. Heck we could create a Christmas book just with pictures from Riley and Ella as Santa and Mrs Claus. Plan B is to start a letter writing campaign and start telling the publishers that we want books. So if anyone knows anything about writing a book and getting it published let me know. OK enough rambling and ranting I'll leave you with some pictures of my beautiful kids. I've updated our snow video with pictures of Riley and additional pictures of the neighborhood. We are supposed to get another 6-9 inches tonight of the fluffy white stuff.

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