If you don’t have anything nice to say, come sit by me. — Dorthy Parker Words to live by. I’ve always believed that. (Second only to Woody Allen’s, “I would never join a club that would allow a person like me to become a member.” I actually managed to incorporate that one into my wedding vows.) […]

Sophie was late for school today. It’s happened before. But today — unlike other days — it wasn’t because I rushed and pushed and skidded to the finish line a few moments late. It was because I didn’t. I didn’t rush this morning. School doesn’t start til 9 am and we live all of three […]

Track and field practice has been really great for Sophie — tonight she even set a personal record in the javelin, throwing it 10 and a half feet (I think — it was 10 and a half something). But it never occurred to me that Special Olympics would lead Sophie to ask such hard questions. […]

The other night I took Sophie and her best friend Sarah to the movies and gave them pennies to toss in the fountain. They decided it’s ok to tell the person who gave you the penny the wish you made. “I wished that Sophie and I will be BFFs our whole lives,” Sarah told me. Me too, […]

It happened again yesterday.  I was having a meeting at work with a brand-new hire, a super-smart guy (way smarter than me, for sure — by the books, anyway) who just finished journalism school. We were going over his job description, and he said it about something, I’m not sure what. “That’s so retarded!” Or […]

He stood on the edge of the track, away from everyone else; he’d arrived late and missed most of the stretching exercises. I noticed him right away. Others brought water bottles to Special Olympics practice, and Sophie had her special purple javelin with her, but this boy — probably in his mid to late teens […]

It came, as most of the hard questions do, from the back seat. This one was, perhaps, the hardest of all. “Mommy, why do I have Down syndrome?” Sophie and I had just left Special Olympics practice, so I wasn’t completely surprised that the topic came up — we’re almost never around groups of people […]

Pretty much ever since Sophie was born, I’ve kept a running list in my head of clothing items people with Down syndrome should avoid at all costs. These include but are not limited to: top hats, bow ties and overalls. Look, I get that that’s not a particularly politically correct thing to say. But we […]

I spent much of the last week in search of a lactating goat. It seemed vital that Sophie actually witness an animal being milked, as part of her science fair project: learning how to make butter. I always lose my mind at science fair time. Last year a friend helped Sophie build a carousel out […]

You might find this hard to believe, but we actually made it through the entire play date and I still have no idea whether the kid’s mom knows Sophie has Down syndrome. And that is because I never actually met the mom; and she never met Sophie, either. To be fair, I’m pretty sure Sophie’s […]