In this world of infinite variety, Catherine was just another variation on the idea that the only normality is nonnormality.
“I was so sure I was the parent who was not going to be able to deal with a child who was in any way different,” she said. “I was just relieved to love her. She was very lovable. All my friends had these children they thought were perfect, and then they’ve had to come to terms with their children’s limitations and problems. I had this baby everyone thought was a disaster, and my journey has been to find all the things that are amazing about her. I started off knowing she was flawed, and all the surprises since then have been good ones. She’s one of the nicest, kindest, most thoughtful, sensitive people that I’ve ever met. She’s funny. She always highlights the positive; I don’t know how much of that is personality or if that’s Down syndrome. When she makes up her mind that she’s not doing something, that is that, which is also typical of Down syndrome.”
I know from personal experience how kind sympathy can be a noxious prejudice; I do not care to spend time with people who pity me for being gay, even if their sympathy reflects a generous heart and is offered with egregious politesse.
“Prenatal diagnosis reinforces the medical model that disability itself, not societal discrimination against people with disabilities, is the problem to be solved. Prenatal genetic testing followed by selective abortion is morally problematic and it is driven by misinformation.”
这一章在讲一个有唐氏综合征的孩子，他妈妈在育儿方面非常积极，从小给他各种丰富的刺激，促进智力的发育，结果他就真的很聪明，七岁的时候会用 12 种语言数到 10，讲话没问题，在学校里也是模范学生。以上都是他付出了比常人多得多的努力的结果。然而渐渐地就发现他在理解人类社会方面问题很大，比如他会到处拥抱陌生人，会想开一家店专门告诉顾客某部电影的主旨。学校里的孩子们不喜欢他，工作之后因为独特的工作方式也很不招人待见。他比绝大多数唐氏综合征的人都聪明，但是对健全人类来说他又太笨了，所以就完全没有同类。
但看到书中的描写我没有觉得他很笨，他就是没有正常人那些条条框框，比如这一段：
Jason found his first job at Barnes & Noble, tearing the covers off magazines destined for recycling. He found it excruciatingly boring and kept making up ways to amuse himself. When his supervisor insisted that this was not his job, he replied, “I’m an independent adult person and I make my own decisions”—showing the very spirit that Charles and Emily had fostered, applied in exactly the wrong context. He was fired soon thereafter.
哇 “I’m an independent adult person and I make my own decisions” 这句话哪里说得不对吗？？
还有他妈妈纠结自己坚持把孩子教育成高功能有没有错的这一段：
A couple of years later, Jason was depressed again, and Emily reflected with concern on her original attempt to make Jason the highest-functioning DS kid in history. She said, “With perfect hindsight would I have done it differently? His intelligence has enriched our relationship so much and I would never want to give that up, but I’ll admit that lower-functioning Down kids are happier, less obsessed with how unfair it is. They have an easier time in many ways, but is that better? He takes such pleasure in words, in using his mind.” I went to a reading at Barnes & Noble that Jason and his friend did when their book was reissued. Jason answered the audience’s questions with fluency and poise. Emily was aglow and Jason was aglow, their pleasure in his intelligence a mutual delight.
总之感觉是一个很好的人，是社会不够接纳他。
“Raising a kid like Jason,” she said, “the kid is the least of the challenges. Jason was there to put his arms around me when the bureaucracies had nearly killed me.” Services are seldom available to anyone who does not have the wherewithal to battle agencies. Doing so often requires education, time, and money—which is a painful irony given that these services are intended to benefit people who may be short on all three.
我鳗鱼 
也是一只自由泳的小鸟
boosted
也是一只自由泳的小鸟
boosted
有声书里在放 Benjamin Blümchen 关于圣诞节的故事，里面提到了“礼物”，小姑娘立马兴奋起来了：“礼物！礼物！”
她爸：“那你有给我的礼物吗？”
小姑娘：“没有，我不是圣诞老人。”
用了四十年的华夫饼机终于坏了😅
我鳗鱼 也是一只自由泳的小鸟
boosted
也是一只自由泳的小鸟
boosted
呃呃呃本来这货八点就上沙发准备睡了，结果她闹啊闹要去她爸屋里睡，然后闹啊闹又要去沙发上睡，然后闹啊闹上了我的床，但是我是高低床，她也不睡觉，闹啊闹的很危险，于是又把她拉下了床，现在十一点半了还不睡，我室友疯了。
我：这一切都是你自己想要的。
室友：不是我，我没想要这样的…
我：是你。
姑娘：是的，是爸爸，不是我。
…
她爸已经躺下了，她现在还在屋里蹦
小姑娘看我在织蓝毛衣，就说我在 mache blau
On the LPA website, one woman complained about the difficulty of not being able to kiss an AP or look into his eyes while they were having sex. Harry Wieder said, “For people of equal height, what is mysterious is the lower body, which you have to reach for—that’s what’s sexualized. For me, it’s the opposite. I look at people below the waist all day every day, and my idea of intimacy is the special occasion of looking someone in the face. The feeling when having sex with APs (average people) that I needed to relate to the bottom half of the body, and not relate so much to the top half, was problematic.”
LPA (Little People of America) and similar organizations can be a blessing, though they can, equally, be a trial; Ablon points out that attending LPA can traumatize people who have blamed all their problems on their dwarfism, and who must now come to terms with personal flaws.
