Many years ago, my colleague Paul Rubin profiled a local pediatric cardiac surgeon for our paper, Phoenix New Times. The headline was “Prince of Hearts.”

But to me, it’s Paul who’s the prince of hearts. Maybe even the king.

You should read his article about Michael Teodori. It’s a wonderful piece of journalism, well written and the result of months (literally) of reporting. It is not a story, pardon the pun, for the faint of heart. I am, and although it’s been almost a decade since the piece was published, I can still remember standing in the doorway of Paul’s office, wincing as he tried to tell me what it was like to watch the doctor literally hold a baby’s heart in his hand.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” I said, covering my ears and waving my hands to make it stop. I just couldn’t go there. I had a one-year-old and (although I didn’t know it yet) another baby on the way, and I simply couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have a child with a serious medical problem, let alone one requiring open heart surgery.

Less than a year later — days after Sophie was born — I called Paul.

“Hey, you know that heart surgeon you profiled?” I asked. “I need his number.”

Paul didn’t just give me the doctor’s number. He called him personally. He assured me this particular procedure was the simplest these surgeons performed, talked me through the whole thing — several times, although I never did understand just what they did to Sophie’s heart. (Defense mechanism.) Four months later, on the day of the operation, Paul left work to come to the hospital and visit the nurses he’d gotten to know in the pediatric ICU, making sure they’d give Sophie extra-special care. He sat with us in the waiting room, and when Ray and I were able to see Sophie, he stayed behind and waited with my parents. At one point I looked up, and my dad was standing by Sophie’s bed. I was shocked; my father’s not the type to hang out near  medical tubing and bloody incisions. Paul had convinced him to come in and see her.

Nobody convinces my dad to do anything. But nobody had told Paul that.

By the time Sophie needed her second heart operation, at age 4, she and Paul were great friends. Post-surgery, she was understandably cranky, and pushed most visitors away. Not Paul. For months he told the story about how Sophie reached up from her hospital bed, grabbed his finger, and refused to let go.

Lots of people pass the Sophie Test, but few with the flying colors of this guy. When she sees him she goes nuts, and has announced on more than one occasion that she intends to marry him. (Awkward for his current wife.)

Don’t get me wrong. Paul is no saint. In the nearly 20 years we worked together, I wanted him dead on more than one occasion. He can be stubborn, and tact is not always his strong suit. I’ll never forget where I was standing the day he told me a cover story I’d just written was the worst thing he’d ever read in our paper. (An insult I’m still not quite ready to admit as true.)

But I also remember every rare, hard-earned compliment — including last week’s, when he told me how much he likes reading my blog. (It should be noted that when I started this blog, Paul cringed and made faces at the mere idea.) In the last 20 years, the guy has defended me against bullies and bitches; taught me a lot of what I know about journalism; introduced me to trusted sources; and brought me back documents from the courthouse on the hottest summer days. (And if you’ve ever been to Phoenix in July, you know that’s a big deal.)

We joked often that in all our years in the same office, we’d rarely been to lunch together; we were both too busy. But when I needed him, he was there. And he was there for Sophie.

This week, Paul cleared out his office. Even though I’m on the other side of the building, and never could hear his phone conversations or his jazz music, somehow the place feels quieter now. I walked by his mailbox and noticed there’s still a box of Thin Mints in it, a purchase he made from my girls back in January. He doesn’t eat that kind of thing — the biggest treat I’ve seen him allow himself is one Hershey’s kiss from my candy jar, almost every afternoon — but he bought a box of Girl Scout cookies every year when the girls walked around the office with their order forms.

I’d always tell him not to, offering to erase the order after Sophie had sweet talked him — she’d never know the difference. But he’d always insist, saying he wanted to do it for the girls.

He’s that kind of guy.

A while back, I was having dinner at a downtown Phoenix restaurant with two of my best girlfriends. Someone who knew someone at the table stopped to say hi.

“Hey, what’s with the book club?” he asked, laughing.

We looked at each other. It took us a minute — he was making fun of the fact that all three of us were wearing glasses.

I rarely think about my glasses. I’ve worn them full time since — geez, I’m not sure how long. A really long time. I am terrified of contacts. Why would you voluntarily stick something in your eye?

And frankly, once you hit a certain age, a pair of glasses can hide a multitude of sins (or, at least, a few wrinkles, at least that’s what I tell myself — and my  mom recently admitted she still wears her glasses even though she doesn’t really need them, for the same reason).

Plus, I love my glasses. Not long ago, I invested in a funky pair by Betsey Johnson, after falling for the ones my friend Laurie was wearing. I love ‘em.

So does Sophie. Sophie has begged for glasses for years, and not long ago it became obvious that she really needs them. Armed with a prescription and a false start at LensCrafters (I don’t recommend taking your special needs kid there) we headed across town to my optometrist.

Sophie chose a pair of wire frames in a blue-purple hue. No Betsey Johnsons for her; Sophie’s are made by (seriously) Barbie. The frames are perfectly nice, very plain.

Here’s where I make my ugly admission: As soon as she put them on, my heart sank.

I often wonder if we are hard-wired to find our own children the most gorgeous, breath-taking creatures on the planet. That’s how I feel about mine — isn’t it how you feel about yours? I could (and do) stare at Annabelle and Sophie for hours, taking in the soft skin, the perfectly shaped calves, the sweet smiles. Marveling that I created such beauty.

Shallow, but true.

So please, universe, don’t stick some crappy, Barbie brand wire-framed glasses on one of those faces. I know you’ll tell me that Sophie looks absolutely adorable in the glasses. But to me, not so much.

Maybe it’s because when I was 4, my mother let me pick out my first pair of glasses and I managed (with the help of a shag haircut that was not my idea) to transform myself into a hideous beast in octagonal green and brown tortoiseshell. (It was a long journey from that stage to the dinner table with bespectacled friends stage.) Maybe it’s because five minutes after Sophie put them on, the glasses were already cockeyed and smudged. Maybe it’s because it’s a pain in the ass to keep glasses on a kid, particularly this kid.

Maybe it’s because when I look at Sophie in those glasses, I see just another kid with Down syndrome rather than my own amazing, unique daughter.

Maybe I’m a terrible, shallow person. But I’m not so terrible that I don’t recognize that my kid can’t see very well. So we got Sophie the glasses, and a special case, and a lot of instructions about how to take care of her new prized possession.

The glasses lasted an entire day and a half before she lost them. So today I’ll call the optometrist and order a new pair. For the next few days, at least, I’ll have my Sophie back.

And some time to adjust my attitude.

“Doesn’t her dad usually bring her?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “He does. But he’s out of town today.”

I thought it was sweet that she remembered Ray, since it’s been a whole year since Sophie’s last cardiologist appointment. A YEAR. That’s big in our world. We’ve never gone a whole year. 

When I realized that the appointment was yesterday — a day Ray couldn’t take her — I thought about changing it. But it’s hard to get in, it would have been another whole month. Neither Ray nor I thought it was a good idea to wait. So I went.  

I take the girls to most of their doctor appointments, but Ray’s been the pointman on the heart, since the very beginning. He took the first call, the one where we learned that although the pediatrician (the one who insisted she didn’t have Down syndrome) was positive there was nothing wrong with Sophie’s heart, there was. She needed open heart surgery when she was four months old. 

Ray’s the one who learned all the terminology, the one who watched them put the bag of ice on our infant’s face to shock her back when her heart went nuts, in the aftermath of surgery. And after the doctors promised the first fix was a good one, it was Ray who called me from the cardiologist’s office when Sophie was four, to break the news that she needed surgery again. That appointment was the one that was supposed to be the last six month check up; after that, it would be every year. But it wouldn’t. We were back at square one.

Now we’re finally at the annual exam mark. A whole year without a cardiologist listening to Sophie’s heart. A year without an EKG. Or an echocardiogram. I was nervous this morning, so nervous I didn’t even notice that I dressed Sophie in hearts — dress, tights, even her Converse have little hearts Sharpie-d on. So nervous I forgot we were past Empty until we were pulling out of the driveway, already late for the appointment across town.

I watched that damn echocardiogram machine, and thought of the first echo, when Sophie was four days old; the tech was stoic, didn’t say a word, kept his gaze from ours. I knew better today than to ask what the red flashes meant. Or the blue ones. I waited for the doctor.

He was all smiles. Sophie is just fine. She has a little leakage, but no more today than she did after the second surgery, he told me. Her repair is “artful,” he said.

I texted Ray, and left the doctor’s office with a big smile — my biggest challenge now to find Sophie an EKG machine for Christmas. (Note to self: Don’t suggest writing letter to Santa while waiting in a doctor’s office with tempting medical machinery around.)

And gas. Damn, we needed gas. I’m quite sure we floated up to the gas pump on fumes; there’s no way I’d had enough gas to make it. A Hanukkah miracle, I giggled to myself, as I stuck my debit card in the machine.

Two miracles.

There were plenty of good reasons, trust me.

It wasn’t because I’d had to practically peel Sophie off my leg and push her up the stairs to get her to go to class — for no particular reason.

It wasn’t because the previous day, I’d had Sophie’s parent/teacher conference. Even though the 20-minute conference ran almost an hour and the teacher and special ed teacher assured me Sophie is just fine (reading at grade level, progressing at math, behaving better overall) and I left loving these women more than ever, I still can’t get my arms around second grade. And I’m quite sure Sophie can’t, either.

It wasn’t because we’re now officially Waiting for Blood Test Results. Sophie’s been on thyroid medication for three weeks, and given some stomach issues that are way TMI even for GIAPH, we decided to test her blood now. Given that we are currently seeing a doctor who can’t spell diarrhea (dairrhea — and I don’t care if that was a typo, I don’t think it was, as this woman of indeterminate national origin has no command of the English language — which, seriously, doesn’t bother me one bit as long as you are not my daughter’s doctor and how did I end up with this doctor when I made an appointment with the guy who runs the freaking practice at the local childrens hospital?! Anyhow, we’re switching – the final straw was when the guy taking Sophie’s blood announced they couldn’t find this doctor anywhere in their system and YES I will be writing a letter, at least one) I’m not at all confident in any of this.

It wasn’t because I’d finally, after months of begging the eye doctor’s office, gotten ahold of Sophie’s eye exam records and dropped them off for the school nurse, only reminding myself that Sophie’s vision therapy exercises don’t seem to be doing much and we’ve been without a home occupational therapist for six months and are about to lose Sophie’s biweekly physical therapist sessions even though I begged the caseworker to just cut out music therapy and even speech, so Sophie can get the help she really needs instead. No  horse trading, the caseworker told me. And then there’s the cardiologist appointment coming up and the orthopedist appointment I never did make, or did I? 

It wasn’t because at Annabelle’s parent/teacher conference earlier in the week, her teacher had shown me straight As and Os (O for Outstanding Effort), then leaned in and very kindly told me she does worry about making sure Annabelle has her own space away from Sophie, who’s a frequent (uninvited) visitor to the classroom. I thanked the teacher profusely and agreed with her (and I do sincerely agree) but still, I’m left hating having yet another fear validated. And just how am I going to give Annabelle her space, anyway?

Oh no, it wasn’t because any of that. It was because of a birthday party.

I am almost 44 years old. You’d think I’d be over the birthday party thing by now. But oh no, yesterday morning before school I got just the quickest glimpse of three of Sophie’s classmates — standing together in line waiting for the teacher to lead them upstairs, all reading beautiful, hand drawn thank you cards from the birthday girl, the bright crayon colors glinting in the sunshine — and that was enough to knot my stomach, ruin my day. 

Sophie didn’t notice, she was too busy sucking her thumb and putting the death grip on my leg, and if she had noticed, she probably wouldn’t have cared because yep, my 7 year old with Down syndrome is more mature than I am.

The truth is that if Sophie had been invited to that birthday party I would have bitched and moaned and stressed out about it, then watched miserably as she failed to fully interact with her (not really) peers. And I would never, ever want someone to invite Sophie to a birthday party merely because they felt sorry for her (or because they read this blog post, ok?!).

Ugh. There’s no winning, not for me. And I might not be mature, but I’m not dumb. I know what this is about. I’ve noted it before and it’s true: It’s a lot easier to worry about a birthday party your kid wasn’t invited to than the other concerns on the list.

Really, though, I just need to grow up.

But before that (and apologies, Higher Being, if you do in fact exist) there are more pressing matters. In fact, I’ve got a (short) week’s worth of questions, so even though we aren’t supposed to ask the Four Questions til Passover in the spring, I’m going to ask them now.

You, GIAPH readers, are my kitchen cabinet. And I need some advice.

First up today is a rather specialized topic: The Thyroid.

It’s barely 6 a.m. here, hours til I can call the cardiologist — which I fully intend to do — to share the information the endocrinologist gave me Friday. From what that doctor said, Sophie’s thyroid issues are borderline. He suggests medicating now because, as he put it, what the heck, her body will simply get rid of any extra thyroid medication it doesn’t need.

Really? I asked. Then why don’t you just give this medication to people with Down syndrome from birth on, since so many develop thyroid problems and you’re telling me that unchecked, they cause developmental delays this population can ill afford?

The doctor — who runs the practice at an esteemed local childrens hospital here — couldn’t really answer that, even in front of the two students he was clearly performing for. (Yeah, it got crowded in the exam room, with five of us. And yeah, as you can tell, I’m not this guy’s hugest fan at this point. For one thing, don’t hug me, doctor. We just met.)

Anyhow, I do like Sophie’s cardiologist, so we’ll chat about whether this medication is a good idea for a kid who’s had open heart surgery twice and still has underlying cardiac issues. But meantime, anyone have any advice/personal experiences to share?

Here are the facts, sent to me by one of the doctor’s students (lack of command of the English language is all hers):
TSH = 6.73 ( ref. range 0.5- 5.4 mU/L)

Free T4 = 1.1 ( 0.9- 1.6 ng/dL)

Based on 2 blood determinatios that showed elevated TSH, we are recommending sophie to start on low dose thyroid hormone ( Levothyroxine 25 mcg daily).

Now, that’s something I think all new parents — particularly parents of kids with Down syndrome — could use. A little coaching through the process of envisioning the future, jumping ahead, fretting over something that might (or might not) happen years or decades from now.

But that’s not what I’m talking about here.

Last October, Sophie passed her vision test with relatively flying colors. (What are flying colors, anyway?) She’s a little far sighted and has an astigmatism, just like me (well, not exactly like me, I was wearing glasses at 4, she doesn’t have them — yet) but no serious problems, the doctor reported. We do have the clogged tear duct issue, but that’s a separate thing.

Clearly separate from what happened just a couple weeks after Sophie passed that vision test in October. Her physical therapist asked, “Do you notice Sophie cocking her head to one side when she reads, or focuses on something?”

Come to think of it, yes. It started after that appointment, though, so I hadn’t asked the doctor about it. The PT talked about referring Sophie to a developmental eye doctor or therapist. Then Sophie’s occupational therapist brought it up. She was even more concerned — talked about Sophie “lacking vision” in certain places.

Crap. Somehow (and here’s where I need my own form of vision therapy) my mind raced ahead to surgery, which no one had mentioned but still, I figured, was inevitable. So I did what I do best: I put my blinders on.

This went on for months. The PT and the OT were insistent, so I finally made an appointment with the opthamologist. Again. Good timing; the school nurse left a message the day before the appointment, expressing her concern about the cock-eyed thing.

OK, OK, we’ll take care of it. Well, maybe. Why can’t anything be simple? Turns out, the therapists want Sophie to have “vision therapy.” And, it turns out, vision therapy is quite controversial — I know parents who have been through it with their kids, and were disgusted by the expense and lack of results. Yet I have incredible faith in our PT and OT. And Sophie IS cock-eyed. You’ve probably noticed it in recent pictures, the way her eyes wander up and to the side.

The appointment was yesterday. Ray insisted on taking her, which was nice, since I’m having a particularly bad week at work. Before they left yesterday morning, I repeated the concerns several times.

“I’ve never seen her do that,” Ray said.

Seriously? And it’s not like he doesn’t read with her and play with her. In the end, the appointment wound up being two seconds of cock-eyed vision therapy (“We don’t believe in vision therapy,” the doctor told him) and an hour of removing the tubes from Sophie’s eyes — placed there years ago, to try to unblock her blocked tear ducts.

She still doesn’t need glasses, Ray reported. They gave her a thorough vision test. The doctor pooh-poohed the cock-eyed thing entirely. To be fair to the doctor, Ray didn’t push the issue.

“Did you have her read a book for the doctor?” I asked.

No, he said, because he had Sophie read a book for him before the appointment and she didn’t cock her head a bit.

“I think you’re too focused on this,” he said.

Maybe. And the therapists think I’m not focused enough. Why do I constantly find myself in this position – right in the middle, failing on both sides? Tomorrow is Sophie’s birthday. I desperately need to be at work. But how can I not be there to pick her up at 1:30 from school? It’s her BIRTHDAY. Then again, the most insistent therapists will be seeing her at the house tomorrow after school; she’ll be horrified that nothing happened at that appointment. Maybe I should hide at work.  

So now what? Seriously, folks, I’m putting this one out here with the hope that as always, you’ll share your sage advice. Not about whether or not I should go to work tomorrow, of course. What do you think about vision therapy?

Annabelle was invited to a birthday party last night. Normally I’m not a fan of the school night birthday party, but this was one of her best friends, Bhavini — a BFF since kindergarten — and chances are good that this is the last time they’ll celebrate Bhavini’s birthday together. She and her mother will likely return to India this summer.

Bhavini is one of those kids who takes things literally, so she wanted to celebrate her birthday ON THE EXACT DAY. Her mom respects that, and so do I, so that’s how I found myself in such a rush last night, running from work to grab Annabelle at after care, racing her to her piano lesson then calling the sitter on the way to Bhavini’s to warn her I’d be late getting home to Sophie.

I’d figured I’d drop Annabelle at Bhavini’s apartment, go home and feed Sophie, maybe get her homework done (there’s never much) and Ray would be home by then so I could run back to get Annabelle when the party was over.

I didn’t realize I was expected to stay at the party. Damn it. I didn’t want to offend the hostess — Annabelle was one of just two friends invited, the rest of the guests were Bhavini’s mom’s friends, made slowly and carefully in the four years they’ve lived in this odd place, apart from their own friends and family in India. In four years, I’d never been invited in.

I quickly explained that Sophie was at home. Maybe I could go home, get her, and come back together?

Of course, Vandala said.

OK, phew. I sped home and spent precious minutes waking Sophie up — it’s odd to find her asleep at 6:45, but not completely unheard of. She was excited to go out for dinner, which seemed like the quickest way to get her fed and get over to Vandala’s.

One of the joys of living in a college town, even this rather sterile one, is that there’s great food nearby. We hit one of the, oh, two dozen Thai places in a half-mile radius, and giggled over satay for me and a big bowl of white rice for Sophie. She ate several bites of chicken. Success.

At the end of the meal, the waitress brought mints. Not the totally hard kind, these are sort of a butter mint. Last time we were at this restaurant, Sophie put one in her mouth and immediately spit it out, so I was surprised she even wanted me to open the package.

I could swear I saw her spit that mint out.

I quickly paid the check, checking the time. Late, of course. It was 7:45 and the party ended at 8. I’d said we’d be back at 7:30. Crap.

I buckled Sophie into her booster seat, still giggly and excited to go to the big girls’ party. We started the two block drive to the apartment complex.

Lately we have been listening to Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious way too loudly on the car stereo, but luckily there was no time for music, so I could hear it loud and clear, when Sophie started wretching. Clearly, she’d thrown up.

My first thought: OH SHIT! That’s why she was so tired earlier, she’s getting sick. My second thought: DAMN, I just got my car washed.

I pulled over — we were on a side street — and hopped out to assess the damage. My kids are both big barfers, so I was expecting a big mess and a crying, but totally ok kid.

I blinked hard, my worse-every-day-eyes struggling in the twilight. There was no vomit.

Sophie was choking. It was the mint.

Oh my god, OHMYFUCKINGGOD, how did I let that happen? I’m entrusted with this tiny person’s life, and look what I have done. Look at her. LOOK AT HER. Do something!

“Sophie are you choking?” I asked. She nodded. And then, the scariest question I think a mom can ask a kid.

“Can you breathe?”

No, she couldn’t breathe. Later, Annabelle would ask if Sophie’s eyes got really big. They did. Her face was bright red and her mouth was wide open and her hands were waving.

I reached for the buckle and grabbed her out of the seat. How long do you have when someone is choking? I have no idea. I stood in the street holding her and she dangled from my fingertips like she weighed nothing, even though I’ve been telling her lately that she’s almost too heavy to pick up.

I didn’t know what to do, so I did what you do when someone is choking. I did the Heimlich Maneuver.

Or my version of it, anyway. I faced her away from me, shoved the heels of my hands up under her diaphram and pushed upward, trying to picture the diagrams.

And I screamed. It’s a busy area, but of course this is metropolitan Phoenix, so somehow there was no one around. One guy was walking by, a skinny, sweet-faced kid on a cell phone.

“HELP ME! HELP ME! SOMEBODY HELP ME!” I screamed. “MY DAUGHTER IS CHOKING!”

He just  stood there and looked at me. I looked at him, as I kept pushing. An SUV pulled up, and a guy a little older than the first guy got out.

“HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME SOMEBODY HELP ME! SOMEBODY, SOMEBODY, HELP ME!” That was all I could think of to say.

The SUV guy pulled out his phone and dialed 911. There was no time for 911, was there? Fuck, how long do you have when your kid is choking?

The worst part is that when someone is choking, they don’t make any noise.

I kept pushing, and screaming as though I didn’t see these guys right in front of me, and right as the 911 operated answered, the kid pointed and we all looked down, and there it was. The mint. It was dark now, and the mint glowed white.

I turned Sophie around to face me. “Are you ok? Can you breath now?”

She nodded. I grabbed her up in my arms, only now realizing that my car was still running.

“She’s ok,” I said. “I think she’s ok.”

The guy with the SUV pulled the phone from his ear to ask me, “Do you want them to send the paramedics?”

I shook my head. He thanked the 911 operator and hung up.

We stood there in the street, the two young men, Sophie and me.

“I’m Steve,” said the guy with the SUV.

“I’m Neil,” the kid said. “I’m really sorry, I didn’t know what to do.”

“Don’t worry,” I told him. “Neither did I!”

Sophie introduced herself, then I remembered to introduce myself, and we all stood there, a little awkward. I thanked them profusely, and they were on their way. I stood for a minute in the street, holding Sophie tight, not saying anything.

“I’m okay, Mommy,” she said in my ear.

We got back in the car and drove to Bhavini’s apartment. Climbing the stairs, we talked about how scary it was. Sophie turned to me and said, “I didn’t cry!”

It’s true. Even after the mint was out, she didn’t get upset.

“Me either, Soph,” I said. “That’s weird, isn’t it? I think we’re both in shock.”

She agreed.

Later, after she’d eaten some pizza and played “Life” with the big girls, we drove home and Sophie told Annabelle the story. We passed the Thai restaurant and Sophie pointed.

“That place is bad. I don’t want to go back there,” she said, pointing to its neighbor. “Next time we go to McDonald’s.”

“Ok, Sophie,” I said. “Next time we’ll go to McDonald’s.”

None of us in this house has gotten the vaccine. I know, I know, I KNOW. I’m crazy. I need to do it. But flu shots scare me — both for the fear of coming down with it anyway and more so for the terror of the still largely untried. I promise, I’ll make an appointment this afternoon. (I doubt they’ll let Sophie get it when she’s already sick.)

Anyhow. I got out the computer and as I signed on, I thought, I really should blog about this Swine Flu Shot Thing. And then I thought, nah, I’ll just get flack. Why admit it? Why blog at all, this morning? (I, too, have that cold and am feeling pretty foggy.)

I’ll just read some other blogs instead, I figured.

So I turned to a new favorite, a just-begun blog called A Little Bird Told Me. It’s written by Sativa Peterson. I was lucky enough to meet her in Mothers Who Write, and she’s doing some writing for New Times, so I get to see and work with her on a regular basis — and when you read her blog, you’ll see what a joy that is.

Check out her latest post. A funny coincidence, given my own would-be omission — not that my omission is comparable to the one Sativa’s writing about. But still. Interesting how the blogosphere — indeed, the world — can be filled with Too Much Information, yet somehow, not enough.

Sativa puts it much more eloquently.

Maybe it was because I was reading a ghost story at the time (specifically, “Spooky Little Girl” – the latest book by my dear friend, the prolific and hilarious Laurie Notaro — it’ll be out in April) or maybe it’s just because I scare easily.

But I literally jumped and squealed when I looked inside a blue plastic bag shoved in the back of a cabinet and found Sophie’s head.

When Sophie was three months old, we finally had our appointment with the geneticist, the guy who was supposed to impart all kinds of knowledge but really didn’t tell us anything Ray hadn’t already researched himself about Down syndrome.

As we were leaving his office, the geneticist pointed to the rather-flat back of Sophie’s head and warned, “You better do something about that head soon!”

Looking back, I can’t believe I listened to him. But I did. We got her one of those $5,000-not-covered-by-insurance helmets to round out her flat head. And turns out, I’ve still got the helmet — and the mold they made of Sophie’s head — to prove it.

I’m not knocking those helmets. One of my writers did a terrific story about DOC bands  – they were invented here in Arizona, and have saved many children with serious cranial deformities from expensive and dangerous surgery.

But I’m not sure Sophie really needed the helmet at all. Which is a good thing, since it didn’t do much for her. To be fair to the folks who sold it to us, she didn’t wear it constantly, as required. Poor baby Sophie quickly rubbed herself a huge “hot spot” (yes, like the kind dogs get — looked just like that) on her head, and couldn’t wear the helmet much at all.

In a way, I was flattered when the geneticist told us to fix her head — even though at the time we were days away from open-heart surgery, and clearly had bigger fish to fry. To me, it meant Sophie was worth something, that it wasn’t okay to let her walk around with a flat head.

Today, when we’re cuddling, and I feel that flat spot on the back of her skull — I don’t think you can see it at all with her hair over it, at least I don’t notice it — I wince, hating that I gave her even a moment’s discomfort with that dumb helmet.

And yet, I couldn’t just throw the thing away. Sophie was fascinating with my find — and played with the DOC band for a while. Then I shoved the mold and the helmet back in the blue bag and hid it away high in her closet. Not a bad ghost to have to confront once in a while, I figure.   

Depsite my best (well, ok, half-hearted) attempts to love Phoenix, sometimes it doesn’t happen. But one thing I do adore about this town is how damn small it is — and when you have kids, you discover that over and over, in unexpected ways.

Turns out, Sophie’s teacher’s brother-in-law runs the coolest record store in town.  One of her classmates showed up the first week of school with an assigned bagful of “favorite things,” including a string doll from Frances, one of my favorite boutiques. Turns out, her aunt works there. (I just discovered Maile’s mom Audrey has a wonderful blog, too.)

And it turns out (yes, I am getting to the point here!) that Sophie’s orthopedist, Rick Shindell, is married to one of the city’s best artists, Mary. As I learned during Sophie’s first appointment with him years ago, Rick is an artist as well. He made some gorgeous metal benches that graced the gallery eye lounge, last time I checked. (Hey, I don’t get out much.)

A few years ago, Dr. Shindell (it feels too odd to call him Rick) took part in a show at Made, another of my favorite boutiques, owned by my dear friend Cindy Dach (see? small town!). The show featured all kinds of planters designed by local artists. I have to admit that Dr. Shindell’s made me a little uneasy. He had taken a patient’s cast-off orthopedic device — not a fake leg or anything, just a leg brace — and turned it into a planter.

Clever, but I couldn’t look at it.

I was having trouble seeing beauty in orthotics, given the time we spent in our house in those days, strapping Sophie into them. To me, they were an ugly reminder of weakness; today, I strongly believe those braces are a big reason why Sophie finally walked at 3 and now, at 6 and a half, runs, jumps and (almost) skips.

I have to admit that lately I’ve been neglectful when it comes to making Sophie wear any sort of brace. The other day, I watched Sophie’s ballet class, and noticed that, as her physical therapist has gently observed, her feet still cave in more than a little. She needs new inserts for her shoes; I’ve got to move that up on the “to do” list.

But even without them, she’s super. I’m grateful to both Dr. Shindell and Docras, the PT.

A funny thing happened over the weekend. I was cleaning out Sophie’s closet, and came upon three pairs of outgrown orthotics. Why was I saving them? They seem an odd thing to keep, and yet, an odd thing to toss — after all, she spent years in them, literally. Those braces became a part of her. But Dorcas had mentioned she knows a PT who refurbishes old braces (they cost thousands new and custom-fit) and takes them to kids in Mexico. I put them in a bag to give to her, but before that, I photographed them all for posterity.

And you know what? In their own way, those old braces looked sort of beautiful. Still, I didn’t keep any around to use as planters.