A Lot of Personalities

I know it's been a SUPER long time since I last posted, but a lot has been going on in my life recently with school and other events (looking at colleges and studying for AP tests... ugh) that I have had very little free time. But here I am, in the few minutes I have, writing more about some recent events that I found to be very funny.

This story is a pretty entertaining one, but before I write anything, let me address a common misconception. Many people, young and old, have often come up to me or my mom or dad and have asked, "Is Ela really sweet? I heard kids with Down Syndrome are just the sweetest!?" And while Ela can be sweet, she can also be stubborn, or bubbly, or mad, or calm, or crazy, or literally any emotion you could probably ever come up with. I know that people don't mean any harm or anything by asking if Ela is sweet or whatever, but we need to stop putting kids with any disabilities into this stereotype. KIDS WITH DISABILITIES ARE JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE! Everyone experiences emotions, we are all different, and nobody can be put into one category! Now with that being said, let me get into my story.

So yesterday night, Ela and I were home alone while my parents were out at dinner with some friends. She was up in her room singing/screaming to a song from Mamma Mia (her latest obsession), while I was watching March Madness tournament games/The Office in my family room. All of the sudden, Ela came running down from her room holding two toothbrushes, one of them was hers and the other my dads. Of course, I asked what was going on, and she proceeded to tell me that there was something wrong with her toothbrush. It took me a while to understand what the matter was, but eventually I figured out that my dad had replaced the actual toothbrush head on her electrical toothbrush with a new one that was just like his. Ela was super bothered by this, because she apparently had been attached to her old toothbrush head, and didn't want to change it, so I told her to take it up with my parents when they got home.

When my parents finally arrived about an hour later, Ela immediately came storming downstairs, demanding that her old toothbrush head be put back in its place. When my dad told her he already threw it away, she had a FIT. But it wasn't like a crying, screaming tantrum, it was more like this crazy rampage due to a large amount of sugar in her system after eating a cookie. She was going crazy, but was cracking up at herself while doing it. It was pretty funny to watch, but super hard to describe. Just imagine watching someone argue for no reason and then realize it's stupid, so they just fall on the ground laughing at themselves. That was Ela last night. 

It was so interesting how in the most crazy, hysterical moment, I could see the most improvement in Ela's mental and social character. While chasing after my dad and scolding him, she was using advanced sentences and speaking in full sentences that I have never heard before. Granted, these sentences were, "Come on old man, put my toothbrush back!" and "You are such a nutty old man!", but hey, that is some pretty impressive language/syntax for her. 

After all the hysterics had died down, after she had already tried to play tag with my dad around the house, and after she realized that her old toothbrush was not coming back, Ela settled into a calmer, but still kinda funny mental state. All of a sudden, she started going around to me, my mom, and my dad, and saying stuff like "you guys are the best family ever" and "Serra you are the best sister ever because I love you." And basically that's where I get to the point of this whole story. Ela started making us give each other "group hugs" and wouldn't stop talking about how much she loves us because "we are strong, we are healthy, we are kind, and we are her family." This whole experience really just demonstrated how complex and crazy she is. Ela can literally go from being upset to being uncontrollable to being the most loving kid ever, and that should never come as a surprise to me or to anyone else. I realized at this point in the night that she has 100 different personalities, and that's what makes her who she is. So yeah, kids with Down Syndrome can be sweet, but that literally can be said about any person in the entire world. I can be sweet, but I can also be dismissive or ignorant. Ela can be sweet, but she can also be frantic or shy. 

This is just one random, confusing story that happens to showcase a lot of her different personalities, but there are so many more. Sometimes Ela tells me that I'm the best sister ever, and sometimes she tells me to go away or to leave her alone, but aren't we all like that? Don't we all have good days and bad days? Why do we need to find a way to classify anyone with a certain stereotype? I know this story kind of seems really random and weird and all over the place, but that's pretty much where my brain is right now, and sometimes it's a good thing to just be crazy (as Ela proved last night). So try, as hard as I know it is, to appreciate the fact that we all have different emotions and personalities all the time, because sometimes our most nutty, psycho characteristics are just as great as our sweet and loving ones.