My Three Year Old Has Down Syndrome

My three year old has Down syndrome. Most people that see her can tell right away. Some have known her for a long time and know that she is more alike other 3 year olds than she is different. To me, she is different than other 3 year olds in that she has changed my life and heart in more ways than anyone else has in my lifetime. In only three years, she has showed me what love, joy, peace, kindness, and gentleness really look like and feel like.

So I thought I would give you all a base-line of Nichole's abilities. But remember that all kids with Down syndrome are not the same.

• She can say 2 and 3 word sentences that we understand (most of the time) We are sure she can say a lot more than that but there are just many times when we do not understand what she is saying. When we ask to repeat what she said, it sounds exactly the same and we still can only pick up the 3 words here and there of her story.
• She knows shapes, like circle, triangle, square.
• We are not sure if she can count, but she seems to try to count with us. This is also due to not understanding her speech very clearly.
• Nichole knows some letter of the alphabet. Just the other day she surprised me by pointing and saying, "A" and sure enough, there was an "A."
• Nichole can follow two step directions very well.
• She is a little rascal and she knows too well when she is doing something she is not supposed to be doing.
• Nichole is getting better at listening when we are outside. More and more she stops when we tell her too. After our escape artist incident, we have been cracking down on her with this one.
• She is a matching champion! She can match any card to it's matching picture.
• She is trying to jump, and she is getting so close!
• She is very good at imitating and she does fairly well at dance class. But anything we ask her to do, she is willing to try.
• Nichole loves her big sister Ellie.
• She is great at playing pretend. She likes to play doctor, mommy, and Barbie.
• She enjoys playing dolls too, and Barbies are a favorite in our house.
• She loves to color and she is pretty good at it! She does not stay in the lines, but she can cover a hand with color.
• She does fantastic at church with her different activities. She follows along with the songs, doing actions, listens to the stories, and loves it!
• She still gives the best hugs!
• Nichole cannot handle someone being sad, she has to hug them and pat their back. She is too sweet!
• She can climb up and down the stairs on her own, but I am always there because she is not very safe yet.
• She can fed herself and does a phenomenal job at drinking from an open cup. As a matter of fact, she gets an open cup for lunch and dinner.
• She likes to look cute, and she loves looking at herself in the mirror and look at her pictures.

So this is my sweet girl in a nutshell. I cannot imagine my life without her. There is really nothing about her that I would change. We are all in love with this little girl and feel so blessed to have her in our family!