Monthly Archives: January 2016

Q12: Life With Charley – Mr. Sticky Fingers

In this chapter, Sherry talks about Charley’s bad habit of taking things that aren’t his. Charley is always coming home with possessions. Magazines, catalogs, batteries, DVDs, CDs (at one point, we noticed the bibles at church were disappearing. Sure enough,

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Q11: Life With Charley – Helpin’

Charley likes to help around the house and surprise his parents.  Sometimes, things don’t work out so well, like when he spills water in the kitchen as he’s trying to make coffee, or uses the garden hose to fill the

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Q10: Life With Charley – A Case of Casweeper

Communication and stubbornness “CasssWEEEper,” he says, almost yelling it at us, and then waits.  But we don’t get it, and Charley stands there with his arms crossed. “Think, think, think,” he says, like, you numb-skulls. (He does this when he

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Q9: Life With Charley – So Much for Respite

“Raising a special needs child is not for wimps” p. 89 “Charley has lots of people who love him but he spends most of his time by himself, which means he has a shortage of friends his own age, or

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Q8: Life With Charley – Surrender

Charley drops a bomb on Mom.   He laughed and said, “Mommy, I wanna  gowa date.” Good thing my back was turned, and he couldn’t see my reaction. “Like, a boy-girl date?” It appeared he’d been watching Grease again. (It’s

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Q7: Life With Charley – Da Weal Kicken

People who have Down syndrome tend to be literal thinkers.   “Not fingers, Mom, kicken.” “Fingers?” Charley slumped down in his seat, lowered his head a notch and said, “Yeah.” “Son, do you think we’re feeding you fingers?” He nodded

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Q6: Life With Charley – Dindow

Charley likes to play jokes on people. The principal stood in the hallway and informed me that Charley was being sent home for throwing his pants out the window. “They landed on the assistant principal’s head,” he said. Imagine that. 

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Q5: Life With Charley – New York

In chapter 4, Sherry talks about Charley’s dog Buddy. We sat Charley down later that afternoon and explained to him that Buddy was an outside dog, a born runner, so we were finding him a new home where he could

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Q4: Life With Charley

Sherry talks about feeling inadequate as a parent: Charley knows nothing of that. He’s okay being who he is. I wanted some of that, I can tell you. I wanted to accept myself, but when it came to him it

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Q3: Life With Charley – When the Roll is Rolled up Yonder

One of the difficult things about Down syndrome, or any other minority, is that people tend to group and stereotype those who belong. Mom always refers to them as “they.”  “They are the sweetest children.”  “They love music.”  They, they,

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