Nicholas was lucky enough to have a whole tribe of wonderful cousins – 18 of them, in fact. But he definitely had a soft spot for his 11 year old cousin, and fellow blondie, Sophie. If ever I needed to encourage Nicholas to go somewhere, I just needed to tell him that Sophie would be there and he was there in a flash. I’m so grateful to Soph for bravely sharing some of her memories of Nicholas on the blog x
Nicholas has taught me SO many things.
I will never forget his sign language. Whenever he came over to my house, he would immediately put his palm up, and one finger on top ‘bouncing’ to show he wanted us to go on the trampoline. Also, shower was shown by his hand above his head with his fingers wiggling.
Nicholas was always excited to visit my house. One day he ran through the door, his Dad Ben, trying to keep up. Then Ben said; “Okay Nicholas, I’m leaving now,” And Nicky just said a short “Bye!” and slammed the door behind his dad.
Once when I stayed over at Nick’s house for a sleepover, Nicky didn’t want to have his midday nap, so I put Nick into his ‘Big Boy Bed’, and lay down on mine. Nick wouldn’t lie down, he just kept staring at me and giggling. So I got up, climbed into his bed, and we took a nap together.
Nicholas always sang this lovely song, Three Jellyfish. He held up 3 fingers to start with. ‘Three jellyfish, three jellyfish. Three jellyfi-ish sitting on a rock. One fell off.’ AHHHH! ‘Two jellyfish, two jellyfish…’ And so on. It was SO cute. Nick would make me sing it over and over again. I enjoyed watching his facial expressions, and I also enjoyed how he shouted out “Hooray!” at the end of the song. Adorable.
I always marveled at Nick’s flexibility as well!
He responded to most of the Nicknames we gave him. Nicky-Noo, Nicky, Puppy, (I had to call him that when playing pets, otherwise he wouldn’t respond to me.).
What did I learn about Down syndrome from Nicholas? I learnt that it doesn’t change how much people love you, ESPECIALLY Nicky. We all love him.
