COVID-19, Meet Trisomy-21

Even in the craziness of a pandemic, Julia and our friends with Down syndrome have a lot to teach us.
#StuffSheTeachesMe ~ Connection Matters Most

For all of the things we work so hard on to teach Julia about how to navigate this life, I’m finding she has a thing or two to teach us.
Is Trump a Racist? Wrong Question.

Can we really look into the heart of a person we don’t know and make a judgment call on their intrinsic character? Maybe there are more productive questions to ask? And who is asking them in the first place?
Meanwhile, Progress.

You are about to witness in this short missive the boundless joy coupled with the urge to punch yourself in the head that a parent of a kid with special needs experiences from time to time.
Everybody Wins – One Dad’s Perspective on World Down Syndrome Day

Life is just as crazy as ever with a mountain of projects and a stacked up calendar. But a week before World Down Syndrome Day, it took a kid stringing fruit cereal on a pipe cleaner to remind me of what’s really going on.
In Every Life, At Least One

Though we often push forward despite the pain we carry, sometimes it’s best to pull aside for a bit and find out what’s really going on.
What Would He Have Thought?

It’s Martin Luther King Day and the warmest the temperature got was in the mid-teens; but the media discourse has remained at its standard white hot level. And it made me ask a question: What would Dr. King have to say about the way we talk to the issues of the day and to each other?
Every Day is WDsD

My Facebook feed has been blowing up over the past 24 hours with all kinds of videos, images and well wishes from our community. It started last night with a video from a family that has been walking alongside us – then a text message from the principal of Julia’s school telling all of the […]
World Down Syndrome Day ~ One More Voice

Four World Down Syndrome Days have passed in my daughter’s life, and this will be the third one I’ve written about. I missed the first one because it was only a couple of months after her heart surgery when we were still taking in how marvelously normal things were becoming. A lot has happened since […]
An Open Letter to Julia on Her First Day of Preschool

Editor’s note: As strange as this might seem, Julia’s formal educational career starts today at the three year old preschool class at our local elementary school. I’ve been anticipating and dreading this day for the entire summer, especially in the light of the wrangling we have been in with the special education department of our […]