Joshua and His Stories

Joshua loves to write. It's kind of his "thing."

A lot of kids with Down Syndrome (this is only from my observation) have a certain thing that they kind of get obsessed with. Joshua's girlfriend, Jenni? She writes baby names. Like, names that she likes for babies. And she finds names everywhere...in the credits from movies, on signs, football rosters, graduation programs. She writes them down and pairs them with various middle names. She probably has 100 notebooks FULL of baby names. It's her "thing." It keeps her focused. It keeps her occupied. It keeps her calm in anxious situations.

Joshua writes.

Sometimes he writes what he calls "songs" or "poems." Lately, tho, he has been writing stories.

He gets obsessed with certain books or movies and will read/watch them over and over. Back in the day, it was Beauty and the Beast. He had a love/hate relationship with that movie. He loved it, but parts of it terrified him. He knew every scene, every song, and most of the movie word-for-word. More recently, it's been Star Wars, Harry Potter, the whole Alex Kendrick Flywheel-Facing the Giants-Fireproof-Courageous movies. Fireproof affected him so much because of his relationship with Jenni. He got the Love Dare book and tried to do it every day, even tho Jenni had no clue what in the world he was talking about. When they would have a squabble he would say, "I'm trying to do the Love Dare on her, but it's not WORKING!"

The most recent thing he has gotten obsessed with is the Twilight series. I know. We weren't really "sold" on this series, but everyone was jumping on this bandwagon...including most of his friends. I read the first book and let him watch the first couple of movies...and I didn't get the big deal of why it was so good, but he watched it over and over. And then, even tho we did not let him watch the other movies OR get the other books, he would ask his grandmother for them...and she would buy them for him...and he would sneak them up to his room.

The little rat.

His whole group of friends, especially the girls, are all OBSESSED with the Twilight series (and the actors). When he started writing his stories and would tell me about it...they sounded very similar to the Twilight series. I reminded him that he couldn't copy someone else's idea, and so he changed a few things.

Well, now he's decided that he's writing a book. And he's on Book 2. I know that I need to go get all of his writings, and try to decipher it...and type it into a manuscript form for him. I just don't have the energy yet. It's a tedious job...trying to make out some of his writing...but I'm going to do that for him one day. A few years ago, I took some of his "songs" and typed them all out for him on nice paper, and put them in a binder thing so they would stay all nice. I thought he would be so proud, and he was...for about 5 minutes! The next time I saw that binder, he had taken a RED INK PEN and gone all over what he had already written...making "corrections" and "additions" and writing things like "chorus x2" and things like that. And that "nice paper" looked like it had been crumpled up under his bed.

He doesn't talk about his stories a lot...mainly because when he does, it's all so outrageous and it all makes no sense...it's really hard to follow. But when he finds someone who is genuinely interested, he gets very excited and animated. He gets this far-away look in his eyes, and he is totally immersed into his story. The other night, on the way back from Clark's football game, he literally talked about it for 35 minutes to Clark's friend in the backseat...and yesterday, on our drive to Little Rock, he talked and talked about some parts of his story. I had heard most of it the night before in the car, so I would interject things like, "I think it might rain tomorrow," trying to get him off that subject (I know...I'm a terrible mom). He would say, "I'll check my weather app," and pull out his phone. Then, he said, "no. no rain til Saturday," and went right back to where he was in his story without missing a beat!

I am very thankful for the abilities God has given Joshua. I am thankful for the professionals and teachers who have worked hard with him, and with us, to get Joshua to this place.

"Before a word is on my tongue, You know all about it, LORD." Psalm 139:4