My brain goes "beeeep"

Oh…My…Gosh

Well, this will be my first publicized rant about my brother. First, the back story: (Just last week, my boyfriend of almost a year and I broke up. We’re going to different colleges next year so it was better to start on the road to friendship now than just ruin it later. Well, we were planning to go to prom together but that obviously is not happening. Meet Logan. He is a very cute, sweet, tuba player at my school who also just broke up with his girlfriend and was out of a prom date. Meet Lily and Jenna. The matchmakers.)

Back to the present. Today, Logan, Lily, and Jenna show up to my house. Logan is carrying a box of Papa John’s pizza. When he opens it, “Prom?” is spelled out with m&m’s and he asked me to be his prom date. I laughed, said yes, we hugged, blah, blah, blah.

They all came in and we tried the pizza. In comes Alex. Once my brother read what the pizza said, he looked at Logan and said “You’re taking my sister to prom?” Logan warily said, “Why yes I am.” Alex then proceeded to say “Sophie, what about Chris, or Jourdan, or Stefan, or Devin, or Zack…” and then continues to name every one of my ex-boyfriends along with just my guy bestfriends. Long story short, he made me sound like a complete S-word to my prom date!!

Fashonista!!

My brother’s new style…socks with flip flops.

Why? He doesn’t want his feet to be naked.

“I’m a helper!”

I spent about 2 hours getting things organized on my bed for Special Olympics including 3 spreadsheets on excel…go to take a shower…come back in my room and my brother is sitting on my bed (which is now spotless), smiling, saying “Look sister, I cleaned your room! I’m a helper!” open my closet…BAM! papers everywhere…never a boring moment with this kid :)

Siri

My brother’s first experience with Siri, trying to reply to a text from mom:

What he said: “Tell her I love her so much and I want to hug and kiss her.”

What Siri interpreted: “find tad I miss those are my dalai lama ugly shelley guy ty arnason jonmac”….close enough!

Is anyone listening?

I’m not sure if I’m interested in the answer to this question. My mom and I watched an old Disney Channel Original movie titled “Tru Confessions” starring a young Shiah LeBeouf as a boy who has a developmental disability. The story traces his sister’s journey in accepting her brother as who he is. She won a video contest with a documentary highlighting the ups and downs of living with a brother with disabilities. It got me thinking, how cool would it be to blog about all of the hilarious, fun, crazy, aggravating, spontaneous things that my brother does. For some reason, I like being able to post about all of these, even if no one sees. However, there’s a side of me that hopes I can accomplish something with this blog. Maybe someone in my same position will find some comfort somewhere within it. Perhaps it will change someone’s perspective on people with Down Syndrome. Who knows?

My name is Alex, reporting for duty.

Hi! I figured before we get too far into things, I should probably give you a little background information. My name is Sophie and I have a younger brother named Alex.  As I’m sure you’ve guessed from the URL or previous post, Alex has Down Syndrome. Some people ask “Well, when did he get it?” or “Is it contagious? Does it run in the family?” Individuals who have Down Syndrome are born with the disorder.  My brother was born with Down Syndrome, Pneumonia, a whole in his heart, and multiple respiratory problems. His chances on surviving were slim to none. However, in the weeks he resided in the ICU, he proved to be a fighter. Boy did he prove them wrong! Some people claim that he has “reached his peak” of learning, that he is now at the “plateau” level. However, by defying the limits set for him in school, surpassing level after level in video games, building amazing structures out of dominoes, or memorizing every word to every song in his favorite musicals (Hairspray, Sound of Music, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Muppets…to name a few), he continues to prove people wrong daily! One of his many famous lines is “My name is Alex, reporting for duty.”