Friendship Forms Durable Hope
What do I do? People in my family received a terminal diagnosis for their child. What do I do? A woman recently emailed me this question. When I wrote her…
Penny in Her Own Words: What I Want You to Know About My Life
What does life for a 17-year-old with Down syndrome look like? In case you’re curious, I asked Penny a few questions about her life as we come to the close…
Friendship: Judgment and Jealousy or Celebration and Compassion
I learned early on in Penny’s life that if I spent my days comparing her to other kids, I would find myself in a place of judgment or jealousy. I…
Homecoming and Belonging
As a mother of a child with a disability, school events can be rough. I’m talking about everything from dances to sports to eating lunch in the cafeteria. I don’t…
No One Is Excluded | Life to the Full
America is supposed to be a “melting pot” or a “salad bowl” in which lots of different types of people live together and intermingle. Still, many of us live within…
The Vulnerable Power of Ted Lasso
Last week’s episode of Ted Lasso was really good (spoiler alert). Yes, it was funny and clever and involved men running around and kicking a ball and crass remarks and…
The Power of Typical High School Kids
“Do you want to eat lunch with us?” Those might be the most powerful words in the vocabulary of high school. I had a chance to meet with a group…
The Significance of Our Social Worlds
I’m taking a class right now where I’m learning all sorts of things about transitioning from high school to college or the workforce and beyond. Recently, our instructor mentioned that…
3 Things I’m (Still) Learning About Down Syndrome
Penny was on spring break last week. Our original hopes for a quick trip to Jamaica never materialized, but we did get to spend two nights with Penny’s friend Rachel…
Make Time for Grown-Up Friendships
No one ever told me how important the friends I made in my twenties would be. There's something about grown-up friendships. Those were the years when I was enough of…
