At a fundraising event for Down Syndrome charity

In june this year, a local Down Syndrome charity ran a fundraising day. It was based on walking in beautiful green fields bathing in sunshine. Teams were exhibiting various products for sale and doing different activities and having creative T shirts and signs with the team name.

  

I was proud of my extended family, including very close special friends, who did the walk in 5 countries in 3 continents. Every walker in the team had a sign on his/her T shirt saying “Dream Kareem”.

Kareem himself walked 3 laps in the field and then decided that it was enough and that it was time to play football. He usually plays games and sport like everybody else for a little, then he invents his own style of the game. On this occasion he decided that he would kick the ball with his foot towards me, but I had to bend down to get the ball and threw at him by hands for him to receive it and kick it again!

Afterwards, he decided that he should go with me to the team's tent and to lie down -it was nice to lie in the shade after playing in the hot sun outside. He had fun unzipping and zipping all the compartments in the tent and sliding from one room to the other.

Shadi, Kareem’s brother took the walk very seriously before he enjoyed playing football. He walked 20 lapses- while I was able to only manage 11 lapses.

It was a lovely day and Kareem was, as usual, our joy and treasure with his wonderful caring brother, Shadi. The day was also successful as the charity was able to raise over £36,000. Dream Kareem team managed to contribute just over £500.

I can spell more than a 100 words

“I can spell 100 words”, said Kareem proudly. Spelling has become his latest game. Thankfully we passed the stage of persuading Kareem to spell “is”, “and” when he would rather watch TV or play with iPad. Actually, he has been learning a lot through special TV programmes (the amazing Mr. Tumble) and the iPad but that is for another blog.

Kareem used to go to this sport of the kitchen floor and play games on his IPad

Of course, learning to spell has taken a lot of time and efforts from the school, the family and from Kareem himself. I remember in 2015, we used little coloured words to get him to visually recognise common words. I played the words with him almost every day for long time. We had a big jar of various words and we would put a limited number of common words in a smaller jar and use it day after day. Gradually we would add more words to the small jar until one day we were using all the words from the big jar.

 

  

Recently, Kareem’ mum invented a way of making writing and spelling visual. She would draw a little table for the letters of a particular word then he writes the letters in the squares. Afterwards, he would write it down the whole word. Somehow, he liked this way of learning. Clearly visual learning is his thing.

For example:

T	h	A	t
That

After days and days of doing few simple words -almost- every evening, he started to decide the words, make the table but not use it for writing! Instead he would write the word first then do a table but the cells did not correspond to the number of letters!

Of course, it was not easy to get him to sit down and do “homework”. We use different method like: what do you want to do first? Invariably it is “watch Pippa Pig”. Then the negotiation starts on which homework first-usually after one Pippa Pig.  He decides between English, maths, science, spelling. We do not name these subjects as he now knows them. He also decides whether the work is from books, sheets, computer.

With the writing, Kareem would spell and thus the game started. Almost every day he would verbally spell few words until he reached a hundred words.

Yesterday Kareem was proud to tell his aunt the words he was able to spell. He would say: “I can spell….” and then he spelt the word correctly. Then his aunt would ask him to spell other words. At last, she asked him to spell: “cat”. He said: ta, aa, c. We must have looked baffled. He looked at us and said: “spell back”. Then he liked the new game and started to spell backwards other words: dog, quarter, mummy, dad, Kareem.

Today with friends he spelt backwards lots of the words he knows: school, children, where, when, what, book,…

I cannot describe the happiness of all the family especially his mother with his spelling “forwards”. Now that with Kareem spelling so many words “backwards” we are in ecstasy!

25th February 2018

The boys made a delicious cake

Both Kareem and Shadi love cooking especially making cakes. I must admit that they make delicious cakes. 

It started with the boys helping their mother in adding and mixing the ingredients. Then Shadi started to choose a recipe from one of the cooking books and to make it under his mum’s supervision. Now he can make a cake from the beginning to the end by himself. He has had lots of practice using the electric mixer and is a very careful and caring boy. He knows that he must stick to the slowest speed.

Kareem decides when to make a cake and what type it is going to be. We use the opportunity to get him to measure and to write down the ingredients. He now knows very well the basic ingredients of any cake: flour, butter, eggs and sugar. Then he decides the flavour and whether to add orange juice, milk, coco or coconut or something else.

This time Kareem and Shadi decided to make a chocolate cake together without adult interference. We were watching the use of the mixer, ready to jump in if needed but the two boys handled it really well and were very careful. Kareem named the ingredient while Shadi read out the amount and they both measured it. Shadi was controlling the mixer and Kareem was happy to help by putting his hand on Shadi’s. Then they both worked to pour the mixture in the tin and mother helped putting it in the oven.

The result of the cooking was one of the best cakes I have ever tasted. It was so hard to stop eating it!

Well done boys!

At the hospital for tests

Long time since last blog! How did July and August fly away that fast?! 

Kids were at holiday. Kareem has had great fun on his newly erected trampoline  and working in the garden: digging, planting and harvesting. -more on that later.

Today (7th Sept. 2017) Kareem is at the hospital doing test (gastroscopy and colonscopy) because he has difficulties going to the loo. He is a great kid when it comes to hospitals and doctors. He is so well-behaved there. 

Few months ago, he sat courageously to have 2 teeth pulled out and went from hospital to school talking about his trip. He loves Peppa pig going to the dentist perhaps because he can relate it to his visit although Peppa did not have to have any procedures!

Well done Kareem for the courage of your little heart. 

Taking the medicine before going to theatre.

All ready now

Good luck Kareem

PM: I went to the hospital to see kareem. H'd finished his tests and was sitting in the bed with a "remote". He did not want to go back to school or home. He wanted to stay in the hospital and play with the remote (which changed the bed position). He was not wild about the white rose I gave him and when he smelled it he said it sment of strawberry! But he took the chocolate then gave it to his dad. Clearly the remote was more interesting. However he agreed to give the rose to the nice nurse.

While mentioning the nurse.Huge thank you to the staff at the JR kids hospital. God bless the #NHS and push Tories plans away from it! 

Friday, 24 July 2015 He is now playing football

Besbes (Kareem) loves playing “bou” (ball) in the garden. He walks while kicking the ball forwards till it stops-usually at the flower bed when he says “goo”. It seems that he is always scoring goals. We have to play according to his rules so when it is “ma tè” then it is his turn to kick the ball. He always stands near the end of the rockery facing the patio while the other person stands on the patio. This is one of his rules. Sometimes he changes position and waits in the patio sitting crossed legged on the bench! I think that is when he is tired but still wants to play. He takes little rests.

It has been a great achievement that Kareem can walk, run, kick, know the rules and create his own. Everything takes time but when he does it, everything is a great achievement that brings lots of genuine happiness to all of us especially when he laughs. He has the most gorgeous laughter. It is like  lovely music of a clear bell.

الآن يلعب الكرة

بسبس (كريم) بيحب يلعب "بو" أي كورة ف الجنينة . هو بيمشي بالكورة وهو بيشوطها مسافات بسيطة لغاية ماتقف –وغالبا ماتقف ف وسط الزهور وساعتها يقول "جو". وبكده هو دايما بيحرز أجوال!  واحنا علينا نلعب طبقآ لقواعد اللعبة ال هو اخترعها فمثلا لما يقول "ما تيه اي my turn" يكون ده دوره ف المشي بالكورة. ودائما يقف عند طرف الجنينة حيث السور الحجري واللاعب الاخر يقف ف الطرف الاخر عند الممر. ولكنه أحيانا يعكس الوضع ويجلس متربعا علي كرسي ف انتظار الكرة. اعتقد انه يفعل ذلك عندما يكون تعبان اي انه يأخذ استراحات قصيرة.

انها إنجازات كبيرة ان البسبس يستطيع ان يمشي وجري ويشوط الكرة ويعرف القواعد ويخترع قواعد اخري للعب. كل شئ يستغرق وقتا معه ولكن كل تقدم يحرزه يجلب سعادة غامرة حقيقية لكل من حوله وخاصة عندما يضحك. أعتقد ان ضحكته هي ألطف ضحكة –كأنها جرس جميل

20th April 2017 : Speaking

Dib Dib Dib

The sound of his little feet on the wooden floor in the morning is like lovely music to my ears. I sit in bed just listening to his feet outside my room hoping that he would come in.

He normally gets up about 5:30 am and go to his parents bedroom before coming to my room to wake me up around 7:00 to “go work” . But sometimes he comes early and cuddles next to me. Nothing can put me in a bad mood like being woken up early. Kareem is an exception. No matter when or how he wakes me up, I find myself happy and cannot stop smiling. 

He can say an understandable "morning" and "good night" now. In fact his speech is improving a lot everyday and he is full of chat. I still have to listen carefully as he is now making 4 words sentence and a sentence rapidly follows another. The difficulty comes when he says something and while I understand the words, I cannot comprehend the full meaning of the speech. This is because I am still stuck in the context of previous speech while he has already moved on to another new idea/context! He now asks why about everything. I when you ask him why he replies "because" and then give a reason.

I remember the days when he was saying a word or two and I was wondering when he would be able to make a sentence. Now he is the greatest chatterbox! 

Teacher's card at the end of the year

I was looking at old cards and photos and came across this card from Kareem's teacher at the end of 2015 . Such lovely words. 

Dear Kareem

I have truly loved seeing you grow over the past two years. I will miss seeing you  smile everyday but I know you are going to have an amazing time in year one and I promise I will come and find you in September  to see how you are getting on. 

Much love and hugs

S xx