I’m typically the biggest fan of the seasonal sounds, but I’ve got to say, if I hear that Wham song one more time I’m going to freak out and tiny flocked Santas and 15 batches of sugar cookie dough will go flying. (Don’t ask.)

So I’m geeking out and making a Christmas mix, which is a challenge when it’s not your first rodeo. I’ve made holiday mixes before. I’m running out of material.

I stumbled on this song, which everyone else has probably already found and you’re probably already sick of — but I love. So I’m sharing.

Back to the mix….

This past weekend, Sophie  performed onstage at the Herberger Theater in downtown Phoenix for the third year in a row. The production is Snow Queen and as far as I know, Sophie’s the only kid with special needs (definitely the only one with Down syndrome) who’s ever been in this show, sort of a Nutcracker alternative presented by Center Dance Ensemble, a modern dance company run by my mother’s longtime friend and business partner.

Hence, the in. Annabelle first performed in Snow Queen when she was 6; we waited much longer for Sophie to audition. The last two years, Sophie was a sprite, the role reserved for the youngest kids. She’s so small I figured she’d stay with that, but this year the (very kind) producers said she was ready to be a “village lass.”

Turns out, they were right.

“Sophie’s internet connection’s just a little slow,” Ray stage-whispered (not unkindly) as we watched her heel-and-toe across the floor Sunday afternoon. It’s true. She had trouble keeping up, but she did it — and made up for what she lacked in speed with a sassy hand-on-hip attitude that got progressively stronger with each of the four performances, til I was half-joking that if there’d been a fifth performance she might have ripped off her shirt, a la Fat Amy in Pitch Perfect.

Even better than what happened onstage was what happened backstage: Nothing. Yes, she probably asked a few more questions than the other kids, might have wandered out of the dressing room a couple times to chat with older cast members, but for the most part, Sophie was one of the crowd.

It was awesome. She played games with the other girls, shared snacks, lined up for curtain call — just like they did. Only one asked me why Sophie was 10 and a half and smaller than the others. (A legitimate question.)

Saturday evening, I volunteered backstage and got to see it all firsthand. At one point I was chatting with one of the stage managers, who made some comment about “The Village” (the scene Sophie’s in) and suddenly, out of nowhere (but always lurking, I suppose) the term “village idiot” popped into my head.

Oh great, Sophie’s the village idiot! I thought to myself. I sat down and Googled the phrase. It’s unclear whether the expression refers to people with Down syndrome, which wasn’t formally identified until the middle of the Nineteenth Century, long after the heyday of the old school town clown.

I sat still in my chair as the chaos of the theater swirled, blinking hard, thinking. I got up and found Sophie, sitting with several other cast members — again, one of the crowd.

Stop it, I thought. And I did. No village idiots here, people. Move along. Nothing to see. Just another cute village lass with bright red lips.

This morning I woke up and realized that Special Olympics cheerleading begins tonight. It’s about as different an experience as you can imagine. Sophie’s just as excited for it.

To be honest, so am I — after a lot of hesitation last year. Both can be tough. Sophie doesn’t fit easily into either world, and as her mom, neither do I.

But Sophie loves to perform. And I love to watch. All the world’s (and all the worlds) her stage. So far, anyway.

I know I shouldn’t let myself go there, but I can’t help it. I do it every time.

My sister and her family were in town from Denver for the Thanksgivukkah Palooza last week — and we had a blast. My sister and I were never close, growing up, and we didn’t have cousins we were close to. Today I consider her one of my two best friends (don’t hate me, but my mother’s the other one) and we both love to watch our girls play together.

Annabelle and her cousin Kate have a particularly close bond, although they are two years apart in age. Kate and Sophie are just weeks apart. I don’t even remember calling Jenny to let her know that Sophie had just been diagnosed with Down syndrome, but more than a decade later I still hold in my head the crystal-clear image of her walking through the hospital room door, infant carrier in hand. (I don’t believe I would have been that kind — hospitals freak me out, and no way would I bring an infant into one without a really good medical reason. But Jenny’s that kind of person. Plus she works in a hospital so they don’t bother her as much.)

In any case, I went there again this weekend, watching Kate and Annabelle — swimming at the pool, dancing at a family member’s wedding reception, ice skating on a tiny rink in downtown Phoenix, cracking each other up in the back seat of my car.

Is this what it would be like if Annabelle had a typical sister? I wondered.

Probably not, I told myself — had to tell myself, for the sake of sanity. Jenny and I were at each other’s throats our entire lives, til the first pregnancy tests came back positive and we finally had something in common. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, right? Annabelle and Kate would never get along so well if they lived in the same house or the same city.

And it’s not like Annabelle and Sophie have such a lousy relationship. They don’t. Along with Annabelle’s expressions of empathy and sister-ly annoyances on the part of each, there are moments of pure joy that I can’t deny. They, too, crack each other up in the car. Giggle in the pool. Tell one another secrets.

But I’m grateful for the bond between Annabelle and Kate, and I have a feeling it will only grow more important as time goes on.

On the last day of the visit, I found this drawing on my mother’s kitchen table and grabbed it because I loved Annabelle’s technique, then took it home because of the subject matter. In it, Sophie’s not excluded from the party (she also adores Kate, and the two do play together) but she’s definitely been put in her place, a not-so-subtle reminder.

At first, the drawing stung, but then I thought, Oh Amy, get over yourself. The truth? Sophie is smaller than dark-haired Kate and the fair Annabelle — the bigger girls’ long, wavy hair the same length as we walk to dinner, their steps evenly matched, as Sophie runs to keep up, eventually joining them. For now, anyway.

I hung the drawing on the refrigerator. For now, anyway.

This semester, Sophie’s older sister, Annabelle, was asked to write a “This I Believe” style essay for her seventh grade English class. Here’s hers; it’s about Detour, a local theater company. Annabelle and Sophie were part of the cast of “South Pacific” in June 2012.  

I Believe in Art

Art is for everybody. The young and old, big and small. Everyone is connected with art in some way even if you don’t realize it. I realized this when I started working with the company Detour, which is an organization for developmentally disabled adults that allows them to sing, act, and put on a show.

While other theaters might not take them seriously, Detour gives them the opportunity to experience the excitement of putting on a performance and having fun at the same time.

Anyways, I’m very close with the director, Sam(I have worked with her at some summer camps in the past). She asked me to be in the production Detour was putting on,”South Pacific”, so I could help out my sister, who has down syndrome, and was also going to be in the play. I happily agreed(I knew that my sister could be a handful sometimes). When I got to rehearsal, I was a little intimidated by the other cast members. I was not sure what to say to them. But, once I introduced myself and they introduced themselves, I could tell it was going to be a great experience.

All of my fellow cast members were so talented! There was one man who was a phenomenal dancer, and a woman who was one of the best singers I have ever heard. As rehearsals went on, it was so amazing to watch the actors transform into their characters and find their voices. But I have to admit, it wasn’t always smooth sailing.

There were probably about 80-90 cast members in the show(that was a lot of people to work with). It became overwhelming to rehearse, quiet everyone down, and for Sam to give notes on a scene or song.

There was a lot of issues with getting things done. On some days, it looked like we would never get the show completed.

Then, the day arrived. Backstage, everyone was either doing hair, makeup, rehearsing, or just plain freaking out. When we were called to the stage, everyone laced up their converse sneakers and hurried upstairs. When we arrived, Sam called us all into a big circle for a pep talk. As she spoke, I looked around. Every single one of us was different: some short, some tall, some young, some old, some blonde with white skin, some brunet with dark skin. That was when I realized that art brings us together and allows us to express ourselves.

The performance was great! I was so proud of the cast, and I could tell that they were proud of themselves, too. Another great thing about the arts is that you’ve made people feel some thing through your character, and hopefully encouraged them to get into the arts as well, no matter who they are.

 See also: Some Enchanted Evening

I have never considered myself a writer. Not since second grade, when I lost a poetry contest and realized I wasn’t all that — despite what my mother said (constantly).

The first day of graduate school, I moved into a dorm with students from all over the university. “You must be the journalist!” the other J-school (a term that did and does make me cringe) student said.

I turned to look and see who was behind me.

It’s not about the writing. It should never be about the writing. If your reader notices your writing, it means you spilled your bag of tricks on the ground for all to see. And that’s not good. It’s about the ideas, the information. The reporting.

“There are writers and there are reporters,” a woman named Terry Greene (now Terry Greene Sterling) told me my first night on the job at New Times (the kind of place where your new job starts at night, not in the morning, and with a lot of wine). “I can tell — you’re a reporter. That’s a good thing.”

Then she introduced me to the guy who would one day become my husband; he’s the best reporter I know.

Twenty years later, I find myself teaching magazine writing at ASU’s Cronkite school, alongside my mentor, Terry Greene Sterling.  “Get out of the way of your story,” I tell my students. “It’s all about the idea.” They have worked so hard, their stories are so good; I am proud.

But the professional highlight of my week is still Mothers Who Write, a little workshop I’ve co-taught with my dear and super smart friend Deborah Sussman for more years than we can count. (Annabelle is 12, so it’s been about that long.)

The concept is simple: Mothers gather around a conference room table and read their work aloud. Sometimes it’s about motherhood, sometimes not. And here, it is about the writing. We always give them a prompt — “food,” “fall,” “happy endings.” One week we asked them to write a letter to their teenaged selves, and weeks later, I’m still thinking about the pieces they read that night.

I was so touched by one poem that even though we have a mantra — “what happens in Mothers Who Write stays in Mothers Who Write” — I couldn’t resist jotting some notes on the only paper I had, the sleeve from my coffee cup:

“Your path will not be easy. How could it be? You are stubborn but not confident.”

I dug the coffee sleeve out of the bottom of my purse yesterday and smiled at the notes I’d jotted down next to that line: “by end, headache gone” (I’d had a terrible one when I’d arrived at class) and “Mothers Who Right.”

And so this Thanksgiving, while I am indeed thankful for my beautiful family, warm home, and new poodle, I want to give a shout out to Terry Greene Sterling, Deborah Sussman, the kids in my magazine writing class and all the women who’ve taken Mothers Who Write.

You’ve taught me a lot about writing — and things that are even more important. I’m grateful.

This morning Sophie and I toured a charter school in downtown Phoenix, our first visit out into “the field” as we look for a junior high for her.

“That was fun!” she announced when we got in the car.

“Really?” I thought to myself. “Because I feel like I’ve been through a meat grinder.”

The school is wonderful in so many ways — K-12, with a warm, family feeling and nice facilities. The staff are clearly devoted.

And it was obvious that none of them had ever encountered a kid with Down syndrome. (Or if they had, not much.)

We’d been to the auditorium (where Sophie begged to get up on the stage; I said no); to the dance studio (where I’d given in and let Sophie perform her role from the Snow Queen for the education director and special ed teacher); to the gym, cafeteria, and math/social studies classrooms when I pulled the education director aside and said, “So, I hear Sophie would be the first student with Down syndrome at your school.”

“Oh yes,” she said, laughing nervously.

“So what do you think?” I asked. Sophie had made it up the long staircase, but barely. She kept sneaking her thumb into her mouth. She identified equipment in the science lab, shook hands politely with teachers, stared back (not impolitely) at the kids who stared (not impolitely) at her. In all, a mixed bag of behavior.

But still, I figured this woman would talk about how smart Sophie was, how witty, how well she’d fit in. She didn’t.

“Oh boy! Well, um, yeah,” she fumbled. More nervous laughter.

I interrupted. “It’s okay, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to put you on the spot.”

And I was sorry. The tour continued; I stayed behind for a moment to compose myself and snapped a photograph of a quote on the wall outside an English classroom:

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” — J.K. Rowling.

I have not read or seen Harry Potter (I know, I know) so I’m not sure of the reference, but the words rang in my head. This junior high thing is all about choices, and I’m the one who has to make the choice. I am the steward. If I screw up, Sophie suffers. (And other people, too, potentially.) Yes, Ray is part of this, but really, it’s me.

And I don’t do well with choices. As we walked down the stairs I thought about the last time I had limitless choices — just after graduate school. I had no boyfriend, no job, just a few boxes of books and cassette tapes. I could move anywhere, do anything. I sent out resumes, interviewed for jobs, trained as a bartender (that didn’t go well), even got a few offers. In the end, I froze. I came home.

And in the end, it was the right decision.

I want to make the right decision for Sophie. But there are too many choices — and none are right. I’m beginning to feel like Goldilocks.

Walking down those stairs, I knew this school was not the right choice. We were all quiet (except Sophie) as we walked back to the office. As we approached the door, the education director interrupted the silence.

“You know, when you were asking before about a student with Down syndrome going to this school….”

“Yes?”

“Well, I guess what I meant to say is that we’ve never had the experience before. For whatever reason, it hasn’t happened,” she said. “The thing is, we’d all be learning together.”

I looked up and smiled at her. I felt better. Better enough, at least, to fill out the lottery form before we left.

I pulled up to Sophie’s elementary school and jumped out to help her out of the car. She held her arms wide. “Hug!” she said.

I wrapped my arms around her, Olivia the Pig backpack and all, and held on tight. Then I sent her off to her sweet little school and tried to remember, as I pulled away, how hard it was to make the choice to send her there.

This morning I spoke on the phone with yet another special education professional about another school we might send Sophie to.

This woman gave her school the pretty hard sell — unusual since so many others have dissuaded me from considering theirs, including a special teacher at the school Annabelle attends. But I wasn’t so surprised; the school principal had already sent me a really awesome note last week which said, in part:

We, of course, think every student is special, and we want to give each student the support they need. Some need more than others, such is life. Sophie would fit right in, though you and she definitely should come and see if it seems like a good fit for you and her.  Middle school is such an important time for kids, and it can be even harder for mom.  Most of our families are very involved, as best as their schedules and life circumstances allow. That is a great thing. I have a feeling you would do the same. Another reason why it would seem to be a good fit. 

Goosebumps, right? I wrote back and told him I was going to frame his email. We scheduled a tour for next week. “Tell Sophie we said hello,” he wrote as we signed off.

Of course I should have known it wouldn’t be that simple. First, this is a charter school, with no guarantee of winning the lottery (though the special ed director reminded me several times that no one will know of Sophie’s situation during the lottery process, so many times I had to tell her to stop). But more troubling was the fact that the deeper we got into the conversation, the more worried I got that even if Sophie does get in, this really won’t be the right fit.

This woman (I was directed to her when I started asking detailed questions about special ed)  was entirely polite and appropriate, but reminded me in so many words that as kids with Down syndrome get older, they stop developing. They fall farther behind. This is a rigorous school academically; it might be too much for Sophie.

And then in the next breath she assured me that all laws would be followed and Sophie would get whatever assistance she needed to thrive like all the other kids — and that in fact, there are kids at this school who may have even more involved needs than Sophie.

I was beginning to feel like I was watching a tennis match, so I lobbed one at her.

She was in the middle of telling me that she’d definitely send her kids to this school if they were still young enough, that she was anti charter for her entire career til coming to this school (and so on) when I interrupted:

“So what would you do if Sophie was your kid?”

There was a long pause, followed by some nervous laughter. “Now that’s a great question!” she said, hesitating then careful to let me know she was now speaking as “a friend” rather than a professional.

She’s not so sure, she said. I felt my throat close up. She asked why I don’t want to send Sophie to our home school. I explained that our home school is now an international baccalaureate program Sophie can’t attend — and the new feeder school is a classic junior high, with all that comes along that. “I can’t send her someplace big, where she might get bullied,” I said, voice rising, feeling awkward for getting upset in front of someone I’ve never even met.

“Yeah,” she said gently.

The woman gave me a long speech about how if she were me she’d look at all the available schools, tour them, think about them. “And then I’d pray,” she said.

That’s when I knew I had to hang up or risk bursting into tears. How can I tell this stranger that that’s a nice idea but I stopped believing in God when I was in the first grade and we were doing a Simchat Torah craft at temple religious school and I looked around the room and suddenly thought, “Hey, wait a second, we’re doing all this because of this God character? Well, that’s ridiculous.”

How could I tell her that I wish desperately that I believed in something I could pray to — but I have to make do with good luck charms, knocking on wood, and taking care not to make big decisions while Mercury is in retrograde?

It was a moot point, because by then I couldn’t speak at all. She jumped in and offered to be there when Sophie and I tour the school next week. She promised to help me find Sophie the right school, whether or not it’s hers.

So maybe I don’t have anyone to pray to. But I might have found a guardian angel.

I have been immersed for months in a somewhat selfish pursuit: The task of finding Sophie just the right junior high.

Parenting is selfish by definition, if you do it right. You fight and scrape for your kid. Damn the rest. That’s how I feel about charter schools, when it comes to both my girls. Annabelle goes to an elite arts charter; if I had to say now, I’d guess Sophie will go to a charter, too.

I feel guilty about it in both cases. The smart kids are fleeing public schools for charters; and who am I to think our neighborhood public school won’t do a good enough job of educating Sophie? But I want the best for both girls, and in Arizona, we’ve been conditioned to believe that the best schools are charters. In some cases it’s true.

But often the charter/public (and yeah, I get that charter schools are technically public but really in so many ways they’re not — a conversation for another day) debate ignores the most important player: the teacher.

I was reminded of that the other day, when a friend who teaches public high school in the inner city pulled me out of my selfish place with a text:

Did you see today’s poem from Writer’s Almanac?

No, I replied. She forwarded it:

Gifted and Talented

by Krista Lukas

For my teaching license, I am required
to take a class called “Mainstreaming,”
in which we learn about every kind
of kid who could walk or be wheeled
through our future classroom doors.

Not the blind, the deaf, and the handicapped,
but students with
blindness, deafness, developmental delays,
autism, moderate to severe
learning disabilities, hyperactivity,
attention deficit, oppositional defiance
disorder, and so on.

The instructor, an elementary
principal by day, who outlines
each chapter and reads to us
these outlines each Wednesday
from six to nine, devotes
one hour one night to the subject
of students with
gifts and talents, who might also
come through our future.

Regarding special programs
for such students, one teacher-candidate asks,
“Do you have to be gifted to teach them?”
“No.” The principal-instructor
shakes her head, as if
such a thing would be impossible.
“Not many gifted people
go into education.”

Quite a poem, huh?

Then my friend sent an email entitled: “PS,” which I’ve edited slightly (with her permission) to eliminate identifying details:

In one class this year we have one child with selective mutism, one with Asperger’s (whose IQ is probably 150+), and one who’s bi-polar and possibly schizophrenic and very open about all of that (he may be one of my favorite students ever — he writes at the beginning of most assignments: “Here is my work. Why am i doing this? Because I want a good grade. Thank you for reading it” or something along those lines, and sometimes emails me, then emails me 2 minutes later to see if I received his message, then emails me 5 minutes later to apologize for emailing me so much. He always writes — in emails and formal assignments — “okay, bye” at the end. His hands shake when he talks to me and he says things like “Please tell me what I did wrong.”) I’ve just described three of that class period’s ten special education students. Why? Because I want you to understand our student body. Thank you for reading this.

Thank me? Are you kidding? Thank you, friend. Thank you to all the teachers.

Last Friday night was the school fall festival — which really means only one thing, if you’re Sophie.

Last Friday night was the cake walk.

For the uninitiated: A cake walk is painfully simple. Each player (a dozen or so can play at a time) stands in a big circle, each on top of a different number on the floor. Music plays. You walk around the circle and when the music stops, stand on a number. This is not like musical chairs; none of the numbers disappear. You stand on one number and someone pulls a number out of a coffee can (it’s always a coffee can, even though I don’t know anyone who buys coffee in a coffee can anymore, so that’s a mystery) and there’s a winner.

Ray and I tag-teamed last Friday, so by the time I had picked Annabelle up from ballet and arrived with her at the fall festival, Sophie had already played the cake walk, oh, about a million times.

And she hadn’t won.

The prize, as you might have guessed, is a cake donated by a parent. When I was a kid, the cakes were all homemade and very fancy. These days they’re usually store bought and not so fancy. Still, it’s pretty cool to walk up to the table and pick your very own cake from an assortment of dozens. I still remember how exciting it was and so does my sister, who texted me in fury from her own kids’ festival a couple weeks ago, horrified because the woman running the cake walk was choosing the cake for each winner, instead of letting the kid choose.

Sacrilege.

Anyhow, back to Friday night’s cake walk. Sophie hadn’t won, and she wouldn’t leave the school gym. I handed her ticket after ticket and she walked under the fluorescent lights, her Yo Gabba Gabba tennies just a little too big, glasses sliding down her hopeful face, the fingers on each hand crossed and then her arms crossed over each other for good luck.

No win. After an hour or so, as tends to happen with Sophie, I noticed from my perch in the doorway that she’d made some friends. Someone got smart this year and got the members of an ASU sorority to volunteer at the festival, instead of parents, which at first made everyone do a double take. (“Where’d all the hot moms come from?” I imagined one dad asking another.)

The girls were young and sweet and they all had really long hair. They gathered around Sophie after each loss, hugging her and cheering her on. Finally, one of them took pity and I watched her eye Sophie’s number, pretend to draw from the coffee can, and announce with a little extra gusto, “Number 2!” Sophie’s number.

Typically I’m not in favor of cheating, but even I had to admit that it was time. The crowd was growing uneasy, watching those crossed fingers and arms.

You would have thought Sophie won the Powerball. She marched up to the table and after much deliberation chose a mangy looking homemade bundt cake with a sheet of Saran Wrap floating on top, not quite covering the cake. “Straight to the trash,” I muttered to myself, grinning and hugging Sophie, who posed with her cake as I took a photo.

“Hey, will you take a picture of us with her?” one of the sorority girls asked, holding out her phone.

“Ugh,” I thought, still smiling. Time for a split-second decision. These girls didn’t know Sophie, and now she was going to be on their Facebook pages and their Instagram feeds, their little mascot for the night. Poster child from a feel-good 15 minutes.

“Oh Amy,” I thought. “Get over yourself. For once, don’t be such a bitch. Just do it. They love her. What’s the harm?”

So I did it. And felt kind of gross about it, but decided by the next day that Sophie’s more of an ambassador than a mascot. Right?

Oh whatever.

I’d all but forgotten the whole thing by Sunday afternoon, when Annabelle, Sophie and I met our friend Abbie for coffee. Abbie is a freshman at ASU.

“Hey, my friend Chloe sent me your picture from Friday night,” Abbie said. “That’s so cool, you won the cake walk!”

I should have known. Sophie has fans all over town, and once they meet her they don’t forget her. Last month we walked into an ice cream parlor we hadn’t been in for at least a year and the owner said, “Hi Sophie!” (This could also be due to memorable bad behavior, but I’ll give the kid the benefit of the doubt for the purposes of this blog post.)

Very small world. Slightly chagrined mother. And days later, Sophie’s still telling people she won the cake walk.

I spend so much time angsting — over the past, the present, the future.

But at the moment, not so much. As I type this, the temperature outside is perfect. And I’m outside in it. There are bubble lights and hot tea (that it’s barely cool enough for, but still) and I’m on my way to teach.

It’s fall. Not your version, perhaps, but if you ask me, an even better one — you can keep your messy leaves and shivering temperatures. I’ll take light sweaters, cowboy boots and the knowledge that it won’t be searing hot again for at least four months. (Okay, at least three.)

That’s my fall. Above: Sophie’s fall.

Her poem was hanging on the bulletin board when I showed up to volunteer in her class last week. It’s the only one that’s typed (because she struggles so much with handwriting) and some others might have fewer typos, but I got tingly when I read it.

Sheer poetry.