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It kind of, as they say, it set the tone.
Yeah.
It set the tone of what we knew our educational path was going to be like.
What are you doing?
I love you.
I love you, too.
You don't know what kind of a parent you're going to be.
The minute she was born, and she was put on my stomach,
I thought, fine, I'm okay, this is the nicest, nicest spirit I have ever met, and we're going to be fine.
And then, you know, the diagnosis of Down Syndrome came later, later that day,
and, you know, it's, you sort of get what you get, and you go from there.
What about PS 189 was really special?
PS 189 is pretty special, is special to me because I have lots of friends there.
I have Mikayla, and Bobby,
and, oh yeah, my sister Ashley,
and she goes to Morris Street, right by my school.
What about your talent show?
Oh yeah, the talent show was awesome.
One of the things that PSA 189 had was this inclusion program, where kids...
it's a sort of a 60%/40% mixture of students, 40% special needs kids, 60% regular needs kids,
and they would all be in class together.
But growing up from little tiny kids, they were just kids first,
and, you know, you don't really start to, you see, you experience acceptance rather than seeing difference.
Children really see only friends,
so I felt like the diversity of, you know, a whole mixture of kids in the classroom was really important.
That's what life looks like.
And I felt the fairest thing to do from the beginning of time was to make a small model of life and go through it and see,
you know, you're going to run into what you're going to run into,
your obstacles are going to be there and,
but, you know, the great sides of things are going to be there, as well.
There are some things that are totally different because they're...
For us, like, now we're looking into the high school thing,
and for a lot of families there's this whole complete panic about
where are they going to high school, and what they're going to do,
and are they going to have these tests, and are they going to get into Harvard,
and is their life planned out for like the rest of it,
and do they have to be Number One in the United States for, like, until they're dead.
And this is not my concern.
My concern is, growing up confident,
having decent manners,
having a great sense of humor,
having a good time,
and having good friends.
And, honestly, I feel like it's unfortunate that that's not what every other kid gets to worry about.
I was given the luck of this amazingly wonderful, kind, loving person,
and I, I, I'm kind of pretty sure that I'm going to have obstacles,
but I would have had them anyway.
I don't get to think about what eighteen looks like, because I have to get to eighteen to see what it looks like.
So I don't ever go into the future, I'm always right here.
I'm lucky to have had her in this particular period of time and...
I'm lucky, too.
Thank you.
I'm very lucky, too, with my mom and I'm so excited.
Yeah, I guess we are pretty lucky, huh?
Yes, Mom.
Yeah, you're pretty awesome.
Thanks, Mom.