National Down Syndrome Day - South Africa

Today is National Down Syndrome Day in South Africa.

To celebrate, our local association put on a fun day - complete with water slides, horse rides, face painting and good food. It was really great to get out and about and just have a fun day in the sun!

This is our first time joining in the celebration for National Down Syndrome Day - last year we were just-new parents, not sure we could cope with taking our little newborn (Malakai was only about 5 or 6 weeks old at the time) baby very far from the comforts and safety of home. This year, Malakai was crawling all over the place, eating the sand and leaves, and enjoying the other children - I could not have imagined this would be the case last year at the same time!

Malakai continues to thrive, determined to get his own way (wow - the focus is quite something)! He is now cruising along the furniture, with a fall here and there (ouch!) which makes me cringe, but I know it's part of the learning process! Malakai has also developed a half-crab crawl which his physical therapist is devastated about! LOL! Other than looking a bit strange - I am amazed at the speed at which (screaming with joy) Malakai is able to hobble/crawl down the passage to find me in the bedroom. His little squeals of delight and hands pattering on the tiles giving him away before he bounds into the room I'm in.

Because I'm not sure if I've shared all of Malakai's updates, I'll just list them below - no... ok... yes... I am completely biased and think my child is a super-star, but hey!

Malakai is an almost-15-month-old boy who loves to kiss pictures of blonde girl babies. Throwing things (anything really), is his favourite hobby, followed closely by getting each and every single musical toy to make their 'songs' at the same time - creating a cacophony of 'beautiful' noise. He loves reading, and turns all the pages by himself. He will clap, wave, dance (or all three in a close succession if he's not too sure) when asked nicely, and he fully understands (but does not care for) the words 'no', 'sit', 'come'. When he feels the urge, he'll sign 'eat' or 'sleep'. He babbles, squeals, roars, makes car sounds, and does a very convincing farting-sound - and I never knew there were so many ways to say 'ba ba ba' - there's the angry, tired, confused, determined and happy versions! He will give everything he comes across a lick - why not? Malakai also loves to stand, bounce and fly through the air, and will spend countless minutes (hours in baby-time) crusing along the furniture.

I hope I haven't left anything out?

I can honestly say that I had no idea where my little boy would be a year down the road from the last National Down Syndrome Day - I can't be more proud of my little man!