Rock Your Socks on World Down Syndrome Day!

World Down Syndrome Day was on March 21st. I want to give you a little peek into how we celebrated it.

First, the whole family wore as much blue and yellow as our wardrobes allowed. We also wore crazy mismatched socks. I'll explain why we did these two things in a bit.

Our homeschool group that we go to happened to be meeting on March 21st so I planned a short talk to do with the kids.

• I ready a book called What's Inside You Is Inside Me, Too by Deslie Webb Quinbe. It does a great job at explaining what down syndrome is and how that really doesn't make people who have down syndrome that much different than those who do not have it. It also has deeper explanations of things in the back if a child or reader wants to learn more.

• What I wanted to get across to the kids the most was what exactly down syndrome is and how people with down syndrome aren't really all that different than themselves. I showed them pictures of kids and adults that I knew who had down syndrome and told them about their ages, things they liked to do and what they were good at...so the kids in our homeschool group could see that some of these kids were interested in the very same things they themselves were interested in.

• I also talked to them about what they could do if they saw someone with down syndrome at the park or in the grocery store...simply smile at them, maybe wave or say hi. We talked about how it's okay to ask questions and how asking questions is better than staring or ignoring.

• I showed them a picture of what their chromosomes would look like and then a picture of what the chromosomes look like in someone with down syndrome. They could see that the only real difference was the one tiny extra chromosome on the 21st set. I explained that this is why we celebrate down syndrome on March 21st because it's 3 copies (March being the 3rd month) of the 21st chromosome. And we wear crazy mismatched socks because when you look at someone's chromosomes all laid out they look like crazy socks.

Later that evening a couple of families joined us in braving the chilly wet weather and walked 2.13 miles to spread awareness of down syndrome in our community. Some groups will walk 3.21 miles but I thought that might be a bit too long for our group knowing that we would have several small children. So I flipped the numbers around and still made it work! We made signs to hold while we walked...some said "Rock Your Socks for Down Syndrome" or "More Alike Than Different". After the walk we had some cookies with blue and yellow sprinkles, water and a drawing for a pair of crazy socks! It was a little chilly but we all still had fun celebrating our girl, Ellie, and all of the other individuals in our community that have down syndrome!

It is my hope that next year we can do the same or even more to spread awareness about down syndrome and how amazing these individuals are!