Siona Zellis

An Essay about Chaim
[Click here for photos of Chaim and the Zellises]

This past Mother's Day, my family and I were at the dining room table having breakfast together. We were talking about my baby brother, Chaim. At the time he was three months old and he was still on oxygen from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. When he was born, he was rushed there and ended up staying two-and-a-half weeks. But now at home, although he had an oxygen tube around his face, he was still a very alert and playful baby. My mother was telling us about how we have to love him even more than if he were a normal baby.

"What do you mean a normal baby," my sister said. "He seems pretty normal to me."

"Well, sort of," my mother said. "He will just need a little more care than a normal baby. Your brother has something called Down syndrome. It's nothing big, he will just learn a little bit slower than a normal baby does. And we have an occupational therapist, who will come twice a week, to do some exercises to help him get stronger. She is coming today in about half an hour."

The therapist came and was very nice. She explained everything she was doing to him. She really made it seem like there would be instant results.

After that day, Mom gave me a book to read about a girl whose brother had Down syndrome. It was a good book and I enjoyed reading about someone in the same position as mine. The only difference was the book took place in the late 1960s, when people thought that children with Down syndrome had no hope and should be in institutions. My mother told me that they don't do that anymore and a lot of people with Down syndrome graduate from college, get jobs and lead full active lives.

Chaim is learning new things every day, and it's fun because on a normal baby you realize the big things that happen but not the small things. With Chaim, every single tiny thing new that he does is an improvement. Right now, Chaim is doing most of the normal things a seven-month-old should be doing. I love that I get to learn things from the therapist and then, when she leaves, it's my job to work with Chaim and teach him so that he learns how to do things. Usually after a couple day of working on something, he can do it on his own.

Chaim is definitely a big change in our family, but a good change. There are so many things that we can learn from Chaim. One thing that I have learned is that you must work hard to achieve your goals. For example, Chaim could not roll over. He would roll to one side, get stuck and start to cry. We worked with him for a while and finally, one day, he was able to do it. This not only shows that we have to work hard, but we have to believe it's possible because if we had not worked and believed that he could do it he might still not be able to roll over today.

Chaim is an amazing baby and my family and I have very high hopes for his future. I love him so much!

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