Today was a darn good day.

With one exception (a big one, she left the playground at recess) Sophie did well in kindergarten. Annabelle continued on her merry second grade way. We had gelato with Ms. X to celebrate Sophie’s Week One successes, and dinner after that (yes, we had dessert first, shoot me!) with Papa.

Papa’s my dad; my mom is in Denver with my sister and her family, so the girls and I kept him company — and I have to say, the dinner table was a much more enjoyable place tonight than it was last night. (The topic of my previous post.) The highlight was when Annabelle told him the “smell mop” knock knock joke — and he fell for it. Really, if you’ve never heard my father say “Smell my poop” — loudly and in public — you haven’t lived.

I was loving life for a number of reasons, today. I just finished back to back cover stories at work. That’s the petty reason. I’m considering how short life is, vis a vis my grandfather’s slow, (hopefully not) painful, sad demise. That’s the more heady reason.

Then there’s a reason I can’t really label, but I can tell you it’s caused me to throw my pity party aside, momentarily at least.

I didn’t spend (much) time today, dwelling on Sophie’s snarly hair or Annabelle’s lack of piano practicing or even worrying about the whole DS/kindergarten thing: Should I insist Sophie wear a name tag every day? (Maybe those safetytats weren’t such a bad idea.) Should I fight for an aide in the classroom, or at least on the playground? Should we quit music therapy because it’s too much on top of Sophie’s busy schedule? Should we start swimming lessons?

In the grand scheme of things, really, that’s fine tuning. Sophie’s set in so many ways. I didn’t realize that til I met another mom today. She has a 6-year-old son with Down syndrome, and for the past four years, he’s had no services at all.

None. No physical therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy, music therapy. No early intervention pre-school. No adaptive PE or special ed resources or respite or habilitation or government-paid health insurance. Nothing.

Here let me say that that’s all I’ll say about this mom and her kid, in the way of identifiers, because I don’t want to invade their privacy. But I have to tell you about them. Since 2004, this mom and boy and their family have lived in Arizona. And in that time, he’s gotten nothing — not through the schools, not through the state’s Department of Economic Services. The mom told me she tried, when they moved here. She called and got a caseworker who never called her back.

I held back the tears til she’d walked away, and while it’s not really my style, I wanted to run after her and give her a hug. For all my eschewing of support groups and instruction manuals and the first season of “Life Goes On,” I’ve still insisted on services for Sophie, services I contend have gotten her where she is today. (The “system” agrees. Well, why wouldn’t they? But they do deserve a whole lot of credit.)

No one makes these services easy to find, believe me. Somehow, when Sophie was born, Ray made his way to a government office and got her signed up. Every new step has been a battle. I don’t blame anyone who can’t find their way — or loses it.

I think the only thing that motivates me to keep trying to get help is the fear of being alone, and ill-equipped to help Sophie without a team of professionals.

I got in the car and picked up the phone, made some calls and sent some emails and will get that mom some contact information. Her son is not potty trained, she told me. He does not speak. He doesn’t know any sign language. One of the parents is always home with him.

I tried to explain to her what’s out there, in the way of help, but she looked at me like she didn’t quite believe what I was saying.

I want to meet the little boy, and yet selfishly, I’m terrified. I know you can’t compare kids with Down syndrome and that that’s not what this about, not at all. And yet of course, if I’m going to be honest, I will tell you that yeah, it is, a little.

There’s no telling what this boy would have been like with early intervention services or what Sophie would be like without them. Early intervention is not a cure-all. But it’s all I’ve got, and I can’t imagine not having had it, the last five years.

I can’t help it. I need to see what might have been.

And more important, I need to help this family, the way my family has been helped, if only to in some small way pay it forward. Or at least try.

We came home this morning from breakfast with my grandfather. It’s going to be 110 today, so options are limited.

“No TV!” Ray admonished, and since it’s Father’s Day, I toned down my objection.

DIdn’t matter — Annabelle immediately invited Sophie into her room. That’s happening more and more, but not always with good results.

Yesterday Sophie got loose in Annabelle’s room for 5 minutes and wreaked the kind of havoc that convinces an almost 7 year old that life as she knows it is over. (Til the mess is cleaned up, which took another 5 minutes; it mainly involved the strewning about of a collection of Neopet cards.)

But today’s another day, and the girls disappeared into Annabelle’s room. At the end of an hour (after several listens at the door) I thought, “Wow, Annabelle’s able to hold Sophie’s attention longer than any of her therapists.”

Moments later, the two emerged. “Sophie had a successful day at therapy,” Annabelle informed me. (Correction: “Miss Annabelle”.) And she handed me a note:

“Today Sophie had a hard day. But tomaro will be better. She needs to stop this behavyer,” Annabelle wrote (on personalized stationery, a nice touch), in a good imitation of Sophie’s therapists combined with a touch of Alexander’s mom, after his terrible, horrible day. (We saw the play recently.)

The two disappeared again, emerging to inform me it’s time for a field trip “to the computer lab to explore Neopets.”

So I’ve got to get off now, and share.