Absolute Perfection

I can honestly say I am embarrassed and ashamed that there was ever a day that I "assumed" there was something wrong with this...something less than...something to be sad about...something abnormal..something less than perfect.  I saw the error in my thinking.  I hope one day that the world will look at this face and see the absolute perfection that those that love her see....it's there in those beautiful blue eyes...in that dimpled smile...in those perfect little pigtails.  God made no mistake with her....he created her perfectly.

Last Disney Post...for now :-)

Here are the last of our vacation pictures.  I do love that Disney has photographers to take picture of you and your family throughout the parks.  I'm rarely in a photo (always behind the camera) so it is nice to have some with me in them and some of all 5 of us!

Love these two!

She liked this fairy too (I don't even know who she is!)

Checking Pluto out

Apparently she likes Belle!

The "Other" Look

I wrote a post last month here about "THE" look....the one that we get when someone feels sorry for us...sorry for Hailey's diagnosis.  Well, in looking back at that post, I might have given the impression that we get that look frequently.  We might get it about 25% of the time.  It might not even be that often.  The other 75% of the time (and I noticed it more during vacation last week), we have people stopping us to tell us how cute or beautiful Hailey is. 

I'm not trying to boast about my child (but, yes...we do find her beautiful).  I was almost embarrassed last week with the amount of compliments she received.  We had moms, dad, grandmas, grandpas, little girls, little boys, even teenage girls and boys, comment on her.  Granted, it might have helped that she was smiling at everyone, waving, blowing kisses, and laughing...her dimples are quite charming.  I think I'm just surprised by it all.  Yes, we received compliments when the boys were babies, but nothing like this.  I know other moms of children with Down syndrome have commented something similar.

This look is different.  I don't feel people are commenting on her because she has Down syndrome, it's not out of pity.  She has a spark...a light...an energy that draws people to her.  They go out of their way to chat with her, smile at her, wave, play patty-cake.  It is almost as if they can't walk by without engaging with her.  They always walk away with a smile on their face...but honestly, how could you walk past this beautiful little girl without stopping to smile....we can't!

What Hailey Did on Vacation

 As you can imagine at Disney World, the boys spent a lot of time riding rides, getting autographs from characters, swimming, etc.  Hailey did not have quite as much activity time as they did, her age limited her some.  A few of the characters were a little overwhelming, she was too small for some of the rides and this trip she didn't do any running around.  I shared a lot of her smiles in the "Faces of Hailey" post.  Here are a few other pics of Hailey's itinerary for the week :-)

 Napping where ever she could sneak one in....Disney is exhausting!

Eating...lots and lots of eating!  There was nothing she wouldn't try!

She also did lots of signing!  A couple of times she even signed "eat more".  I was super excited about that!

Trying to escape...climbing, crawling, etc.

She had us laughing most of the week.  We were stunned at how social she was.  She waved, smiled, laughed and blew kisses at everyone.  We think she had a good time with her family.  She can't tell us but going by her smiles, she had a ball!