I dropped a penny in the check-out line at Safeway the other night. Knowing she’d be into it, I called Sophie over.

“Hey, there’s a penny! Make a wish.”

She crouched down, confirming the penny was heads-up (I’m raising my daughters right, after all) before picking it up.

Still squatting, not caring that she was blocking traffic, Sophie clutched the penny to her heart, scrunched her face tight and without having to pause to consider, announced, “I wish to have Sarah my whole life!”

Me too, I echoed silently, as I encouraged her to get off the ground and let the other shoppers pass.

Sarah and Sophie met on the first day of kindergarten and have pretty much been best friends ever since. In August they’ll enter fifth grade, the highest grade at our elementary school.

And after that — I don’t know yet.

The other day, Ray and I were talking (as we often do these days) about where Sophie will go for middle school.

“That’s easy,” Annabelle said, eavesdropping. “Sophie should go where Sarah goes.”

Ray’s said the same thing more than once. I’m inclined to agree — I can’t imagine Sophie’s world without Sarah in it. To be sure, their friendship has had its ups and downs, as with any relationship. They don’t always hang out on the playground — a funny pair when they do, since Sarah’s the tallest in the class and Sophie the shortest — and Sophie spends more and more time in the “resource room,” but I know Sarah is like a security blanket. Always around if Sophie needs her. And while it’s not exactly the same thing, I suspect Sophie’s presence is a similar comfort for Sarah.

But is that reason enough to choose a school? It’s part of the puzzle, for sure, but some days when I’m being honest with myself, I wonder if Sarah wouldn’t be better off in middle school without her tiny shadow. Would Sophie do better at a small, specialized school with more attention than the neighborhood middle school can offer?

Am I over thinking the whole thing, as usual?

No matter where the girls go to school, I am guessing and hoping they will remain friends; Sarah and her family have become members of ours. But I couldn’t help but wonder, standing in Safeway, if Sophie already knows what might happen in sixth grade.

None of us are ready for this.

“Get up, silly!” I said to Sophie, grabbing her home and maneuvering our cart out of the store, hoping she didn’t ruin her wish by saying it out loud.

Sophie’s not supposed to have a very good memory.

There’s the whole Down syndrome thing, of course, and on top of that even though the sensors fell off and we never got good test results, she’s got to have pretty bad sleep apnea. Last night I found her asleep on the couch, sitting straight up, her mouth pointed to the sky, simultaneously snorting and sucking air.

And yet she’s constantly surprising me with what she remembers.

Two years ago, Annabelle left our local elementary school a year early to go to an arts charter school across town. The elementary school goes through fifth grade, but the charter school starts at fifth. I didn’t think Sophie remembered that happened, let alone grasped what it meant. But there she was, standing in the middle of the kitchen on the last day of fourth grade, stomping her foot and demanding to go to the charter school next year.

“But Sophie, next year you’ll rule the school!” I told her. “You’ll be the oldest one there. Won’t that be fun?”

No, she said. She wants to to go the charter school.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering what Sophie’s wondering — why she can’t go that charter school with her sister. Some days I wonder the same thing. But most of the time I realize with a clarity I lack elsewhere in my life that it just won’t work.

This charter school not only offers kids rigorous instruction in performing arts (Annabelle’s taken ballet, choir and piano almost daily for the last two years), the academics are tough. Very tough. As in some of the highest scores in the state tough.

I know more than one typical — even allegedly above average — kid who’s been held back a grade, or asked to leave the charter school, simply because she wasn’t quite up to snuff.

The truth is that Sophie’s nowhere near snuff.

Yes, legally she has a right to be at that school, and I could strong arm our way in. But she’d be miserable. The school officials would be miserable. And I worry a lot about Annabelle being miserable at this place she’s forged as her own. (It hasn’t been easy for her.)

Potential misery aside, I want Sophie mainstreamed as much as possible, not sitting in a room by herself because she can’t hit the high notes or master the keys or stay in place at the ballet bar, let alone do the math.

What I want is just the right school for Sophie — a school like this charter school, but with a little wiggle room, high but realistic expectations and a diverse population.

I’m looking. I’ve got another year.

At least, I thought I did.

Today is Sophie’s 10th birthday. She’s come a long way. Me? Not quite as far.

“Mommy, what’s this?” Sophie asked the other day, holding up something small and hot pink.

There’s a lot of stuff in Sophie’s room, and a lot of it is small and hot pink, and on this day a lot of it was loose — in honor of her birthday, I was in the process of a big purge — but I recognized that item immediately.

Hot pink velvet overalls, size 24 months, Circo brand. She’s been too big for them for ages. In fact, she never wore them. But I’ve held onto them for sentimental reasons, hid them at the bottom of a storage bin under her bed, a bin that had come out from under the bed during the purge. The contents of which were now all over Sophie’s room.

The sight of those overalls tossed me back eight years, to a time when I thought I could reclaim the word “retarded” the way some women like to think they can reclaim “cunt” (turns out, we’re all wrong), to a time I thought I could make myself feel better about having a kid with Down syndrome by making rules about things like what Sophie could and couldn’t wear.

Today, at 10, Sophie has grown into a kid who defies labels. She uses words like hideous and phenomenal, and still sucks her thumb. She performs onstage — in ballet recitals alongside typical kids and at Special Olympics cheerleading competitions. She’s getting pretty good at multiplication. She (pretty much) chooses her own outfits.

This is a kid who knows what she wants and has no trouble asking for it. Last night at Walgreen’s, Sophie picked out her own birthday card. “Get me this one,” she said, putting it in the cart. At her birthday party, she drowned out the crowd’s  “…dear So-phie…” with “…dear my-se-e-elf…” and spent the entire event — from the moment the first gift-bearing guest arrived — demanding to open her presents.

“Those are overalls,” I told her. “But they are too small. You need to put them back where you found them. Quit taking everything out of that box!”

Waving me away, she squeezed her almost-10 year old body into the toddler-sized garment, and would have left the house that way if I hadn’t pointed out that there was no way she’d ever get them to snap. No overalls for Sophie; not that pair, anyway.

I tucked them away when she wasn’t looking, then I dusted off an old piece about Sophie and those overalls. Last year when I turned 46, I made a list of things to do before I turn 50, and one of them is “Strongly consider getting a tattoo, but ultimately decide against it.” I think I’ll take a similar approach with overalls for Sophie.

In any case, here’s that old piece I wrote, in honor of Sophie’s 10th birthday. Girl in a Party Hat is 5 today, too.

The other day, my friend Kim gave me a pair of hot pink velvet overalls her daughters have outgrown. I stared at them, and pictured my own daughters. Too small for Annabelle, the almost four year old. Probably the perfect size for Sophie, who will be two next month. But I can’t put Sophie in overalls. It’s one of the things I promised myself I’d never do.

Sophie has Down syndrome. She’s retarded. We don’t know how retarded at this point. I personally think she’s pretty darn smart. She’s not walking or talking, but she can crawl across the room faster than I can chase her, and we can barely keep up with her sign language. Every day when she wakes up, Sophie waits patiently in her crib for her father or me, and when we arrive, she presents each of her stuffed animals for us to kiss good morning.

Still, the fact remains. Sophie’s retarded. And I have a strong belief that retarded people should not wear overalls. It’s not a good look. I know what you’re thinking: That woman is going straight to hell. Probably. But I’ll go with a strong sense of style. And so will my children. Particularly Sophie.

When Annabelle was born, we were bombarded with baby clothes: tiny caps knit with pearls and flowers, hundred dollar dress/hat/bloomers combos, pale pink leather hiking boots. When Sophie was born, we didn’t get as much — at least, not as much really nice stuff. That might simply be because she was the second-born daughter. But in the back of my head, I couldn’t help but wonder: Did people not bother with the expensive dresses because Sophie has Down syndrome? I’ll never forget that one of my closest friends took obvious extra care to buy Sophie several precious, high-priced gifts, including a gorgeous lavender flocked velour dress with a matching jacket. I still put her in it, even though it’s getting tight.

Sophie had open-heart surgery when she was three months old. She had a helmet for her flat head, and is about to be cast for braces for her too-flexible feet. She’s on her third ear infection this season, and next month, she’ll have her second operation for clogged tear ducts. You might be asking yourself: Who cares what you dress her in? Maybe I care because it’s one of the few things I can control in Sophie’s life. At 2, Annabelle already knew exactly what she wanted to wear every day. Sophie’s not there yet. I’m responsible for making important fashion choices. And I take that responsibility seriously.

I’m still not 100 percent sure why I feel the way I do about retarded people and overalls. The thought first occurred to me when Sophie was just a few days old. I was sitting on the couch with some girlfriends, eating iced sugar cookies and talking about Sophie’s future. We decided she cannot work at a grocery store, unless it’s A.J.’s. We decided she will fall in love, get married and have a lot of good sex. And then I announced that Sophie will never wear overalls. I don’t know why, I said. That’s just how it will be.

I told my husband. He looked at me funny for a while, then he finally said, “I think it’s John Malkovich in `Of Mice and Men.’ You know, he was retarded and he wore overalls.”

Yeah, that’s probably it, I agreed. Whatever the reason, it was a strong urge. No overalls for Sophie.

Until the pink ones. They were soft and pretty, so cute. This overall thing is silly, I thought to myself. Put her in them.

So I did. Then I took her out of them. Partly because the snaps kept coming undone, but mostly because they just didn’t look right. And damnit, I’m her mother, and it’s my job to protect her. That’s right, protect her. And OK, I’ll admit it, protect myself. For the past two years, Sophie has been just a baby. She’s smaller than other kids her age, which masks her developmental delays. But lately, I’ve noticed people looking at her. They can tell. We were at a carnival recently, and as I pushed Sophie’s stroller through the crowd, Sophie waved her hands furiously at everyone in sight, laughing hysterically, having a great time. No one was waving back, no one was even really looking at her. I suddenly flashed forward a decade to Sophie the 12-year-old doing the same thing in a crowd, goofily retarded. For a minute, I was not OK with that. Tears burned my eyes.

And then I realized that I have to be OK with that. I don’t have any other choice. But I can choose what Sophie wears, so I put the overalls away and dressed my daughter in a beautiful pink-striped onesie, and we went out to First Friday, where she giggled and blew kisses and waved. Lots of people smiled and waved back.

Dear Laural,

I was busy getting my kids ready for school this morning and missed your post on the phxfoodnerds message board, in response to the Amy’s Baking Company craziness. A friend sent it to me. I hear it’s been taken off the board, and I applaud Dominic Armato, who runs phxfoodnerds, for doing that, but I’m going to share what my friend sent me here (I confirmed you wrote it) because I think people need to see it. Here’s what you wrote:

“”Don’t argue with people on the internet. It’s like winning the Special Olympics. You may get the gold medal, but you’re still a r*tard.” It’s an offensive statement, but the gist is accurate.”

At first I wanted to call you names without asterisks and rant a lot about this, but then I realized that I’d be feeding into the Amy’s Baking Company — and, indeed, overall internet — situation. There’s no need for histrionics from me, because what you wrote says it all.

Quite often, people use the word “retarded” around me. The worst part is the split second after they realize they’ve said it and so desperately want to take it back. I don’t love it, but I do understand. Sadly the word has slipped into our collective vocabulary.

But when people use it with purpose and forethought, that really bugs me. I could list some other examples (I’ve certainly got them) but really, yours is so much worse than any I’ve seen in a long time (compounded by the alleged self-awareness that follows, that just makes it worse) that they’d pale in comparison.

Laural, I’d love to say I’ll be able to forget about what you wrote — and I know you are probably really glad Dominic took it down, but as much as what you said might bother you, it bothers me way more. I won’t be able to think about Special Olympics again for a long time without thinking of you.

And that’s too bad, because I don’t get to choose whether or not I think about Special Olympics.

I don’t have a face to put with your name, but I’d like to give you one to put with my name: the face of my daughter, Sophie. Sophie is 10. She has Down syndrome. Depending on which test results you believe, she’s a retard. And this year, she competed in Special Olympics for her second time.

Sophie won a handful of medals in both cheerleading and track. It was wonderful. And heartbreaking. Any parent who tells you that Special Olympics doesn’t come with its own exquisite pain is a liar. But after a while, I can sort of fool myself, welcome the new normal, accept it for both the good (and there is a lot of good, I’m not asking for pity here, or to trade Sophie in) and bad.

Then I read something like what you wrote — and it’s back to square one. I’m reminded of just what Special Olympics is and who it’s for. Sophie can win a gold medal, but she’s still a retard.

Laural, I’d like to say that I’d love to invite you to come over to my house and see Sophie, maybe come to a Special Olympics event sometime and really understand what it’s all about and how simultaneously awesome and horrible the whole thing can be. But to be honest, I’m not interested in meeting you, or having you meet Sophie.

I do have one question:

If you know it’s an offensive comment, why write it in the first place, particularly in reference to the hate-filled, crazy fights on the Internet?

I hear you’re a nice person, so I’m guessing you’re asking yourself the same thing.

Yesterday afternoon, the following email from Sophie’s fourth grade teacher landed in my inbox, entitled, “little note from Sophie”:

Hi Amy,

I had Sophie dictate a note to you about a little haircutting incident she had today. She was working on her art project for the multicultural festival and it seems she wasn’t very interested in finishing it and thought she would experiment with hair styling. Two strands on her right side are at different lengths. If we want to look at it positively, I’m sure she was trying to layer the front of her hair to frame her face.

Here’s her letter to you:

I cut my hair two times. I cut my hair because I wanted to make my hair softer. I usually don’t cut my hair. It will never happen again. A person from a hair place cuts my hair, not myself. And I love you Mommy and I love you. I want to cuddle with you tonight and I love you so much.

I did love that note (both the teacher’s part and Sophie’s), even though I wasn’t super pleased with my kid. Funny, yesterday I spent the morning re-reading the blog posts I wrote during Sophie’s kindergarten year, marveling at how far she’s come and at how even though her kindergarten teacher was truly amazing, and even though I hid babysitters in the classroom all year posing as “classroom volunteers,” Sophie managed to escape many times — including making it all the way to the crosswalk, once.

So I’m not really surprised that with a dedicated aide and a fantastic teacher, she still managed to whack off small chunk of hair yesterday when no one was looking.

Sophie seemed truly chagrined by the whole thing, ran and hid when I asked about it and when pressed, said she was frustrated during art.

“Well, at least it was her hair and not her ear,” my mother said when I told her.

Yesterday I unfriended some guy I’ve never met for posting this status update:

“I have to poo.”

Really? Congrats. And goodbye. I took way too much pleasure in the act of deleting him and wondered, for the millionth time, why I (and almost everyone else I know) am glued to Facebook.

Then I remembered a message I got earlier that day, from my friend L.

L. is one of my favorite people from college, but like many old friends, we didn’t stay in touch and lots of years slipped by til we found each other on Facebook. L. lives across the country — happily married with two kids. We keep in touch the way people do on FB, not many direct conversations, more a comment or a like here and there. But I love having her in my life again. Particularly after I got a note written in response to a post I wrote last week about Sophie, Ray and the Memory Game. (Among other things.)

I liked it so much I asked for her permission to share the whole thing, so here it is, with names reduced to first initials:

I really hope you find this funny….I did.

So first, I have to preface the story by telling you that when I was four, my two older sisters (5 and 7 years older) talked me into believing that I had Down syndrome. Of course, in those days, it was Mongoloid. They pulled it off using a Life magazine article about how older women (my mom was 43 when she had me) gave birth to children who were “often” Mongoloid. They pulled it off for almost two years.

I would go to my parents crying, and my parents — heavy on reality, low on sensitivity — would tell me I was ridiculous for believing them and then my sisters would turn it into “that’s because they want you to reach your full potential.” Twisted bitches they were.

Finally, I burst into tears at the pediatrician’s office because I was going to have all sorts of heart problems…if I was indeed Mongoloid…and he called the two bitches in from the waiting room and straightened the whole thing out. Of course, I got into trouble later for believing them. Arg.

OK, so yesterday, at lunch I was reading your blog to [my husband] P. The boys have become huge Sophie fans and so they were listening. It was a stretch for them since they come in 5th out of 5 in races all the time because they inherited their mother’s gene for running, but they could follow along just fine. P. found Ray’s summation of Sophie’s retardation brilliant and we discussed (the memory game enthusiasm) at length. He feels like an example like that would be excellent to use for parents…or maybe not so much.

Anyway, we were both laughing and then when I got to the bit about hanging her ribbon next to your button [that reads "If at first you don't succeed you'll be a loser and a burden on society for the rest of your life"] all four of us were roaring…both boys pointed out that P. and I should get buttons like that.

So, remember that my little one has dyslexia and goes to a school for learning disorders…that is important. So, I’m putting the boys to bed and J., the little one, says “Mommy, I’m worried that I’m retarded.” Of course, I go straight to assuming his brother is brainwashing him since that is what happened to me AND that is what happened last year when J. was diagnosed, and I go straight to “Why do you even listen to C., you know he is just trying to screw with you.”

And J. says, “No Mommy, when we play Concentration (memory game, which is BRUTAL for dyslexics), I get excited at the end too…but mostly because it is over. But also because I get another pair.”

Obviously, you have far more on your plate guiding Sophie through school and life, but you know…it’s really a whole lot like all parents, just more intense, and since it’s you, way more funny!

I actually think L. has the corner on comedic timing, so I take her kind words as a supreme compliment. And I will never unfriend her, even if she does at some point feel the need to share her bowel habits with the world.

When Sophie was 4, there was some question as to whether she actually qualified as mentally retarded (the official term they used then — and still do, to a large part).

I really liked the idea of having a kid with Down syndrome who wasn’t retarded, even though all the medical literature tells you the two go hand-in-hand, and the only reason the whole thing was in question was because if she did test too well the state would take away her services.

Ray rolled his eyes when I told him.

“You know how I know Sophie’s mentally retarded?” my plain-spoken husband asked. “Because when I play the Memory Game with her, she’s as excited about the last match as she is the first.”

I had to agree. It was true. I figured that would change with time, that as she got older, Sophie would figure out what’s worth getting excited about.

So far, she hasn’t. Or maybe she has — and I’m the one who’s got it wrong.

I thought of the Memory Game this morning as Sophie competed in the 50 meter dash in the Special Olympics state track meet.

“Oh fuck,” I thought as the runners took their marks. As is typically the case with Sophie — both on the track and in life — the other kids towered over her. And they all looked pretty fit. She took off fast, arms pumping, tongue out, hair flying, trying her very best.

It was a close finish, and from my (admittedly inexperienced) perspective, it looked like she placed.

“She came in last,” Ray said matter-of-factly when I found him. (He’d been right at the finish line to get the best video.)

“But did you see her run?” he asked. “Her stride was awesome!”

It was. I was really proud. But still, I pouted a little as we walked around the dusty track to meet up with Sophie at the awards tent, where groups of volunteers in sweater vests and turquoise jewelry played the Olympic theme song again and again (and again and again and again) as they handed out medals and ribbons in heat after heat.

Every athlete takes the stage, everyone gets a medal or a ribbon and the gold medal winner gets flowers. They do it right; it’s designed to make everyone feel good. Even so, some of the athletes looked happier than others. My favorite was an older woman with jet black hair and bright turquoise eye shadow that matched her team tee shirt; she rolled her eyes and smirked when they gave her her ribbon, clearly a little embarrassed to be celebrated for a mediocre effort.

I felt a kinship with that woman. But not with Sophie, who absolutely beamed as she took her spot — Ray was right, fifth out of five — and grinned as Ray and I cheered loudly when her name was called.

Afterward, Sophie called her babysitter. “I got fifth out of five!” she told her, super excited, then told me that I should hang her ribbon up in my office because it’s really special.

So I did.  On my bulletin board, next to the button that reads, “If at first you don’t succeed, you’ll be a loser and a burden on society for the rest of your life.”

Hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Or, apparently, 10 years. But I’m getting there.

Dear Ms. Silverman,

Thank you for writing to share your request. We certainly understand
your desire for a My American Girl® doll with Down’s Syndrome. Over the
years, we have received many requests for characters facing various
medical conditions or physical challenges. We realize that girls want a
character to which they can relate.

All of these requests are important to us, as well as to the people who
are asking to create specific characters. Although we get our ideas
from our own staff, we sincerely appreciate requests such as yours as
they help us determine if we are meeting the needs of the girls we
serve. We will continue to do our best to bring you products and
services of the highest quality. Please watch for new developments in
our catalogues and on our website at americangirl.com.

Sincerely,

American Girl Customer Service
Phone: 1-800-845-0005 or 608-831-5210
Fax: 608-828-4790
Available Monday – Sunday 7 a.m. – 10 p.m. Central Time

In other words, no. We will not make an American Girl doll with Down syndrome.

I have to admit that I’m not 100% convinced the world needs a doll with Down syndrome. Let me clarify — not just any doll. For a while, years ago, I was convinced that Cabbage Patch Dolls all had it; that freaked me out. And it makes me sad when, from time to time, I stumble across a line of dolls with Down syndrome designed by a well-meaning mom of a kid with DS.

With all due respect, Sophie and the rest of the kids — and even more important, their typical peers — deserve something better. They deserve what the rest of the girls get. They deserve an American Girl doll with Down syndrome.

I get the complaints about American Girl dolls. For starters, they are really freaking expensive. And the add-ons (ears pierced? hair styled? a doll hospital?) are ridiculous.

But I love the back stories. That, the company really gets right. It’s brilliant marketing. I had just bought Annabelle her first American Girl doll when they released Rebecca, the Jewish one — which, of course, I had to buy. So then Annabelle had two. Then they came out with Mia, the doll that gets bullied. We had to have that one. When Sophie begged for Gwen, the homeless American Girl doll, what was I supposed to say?

Which is why today, if you walk past our playroom, you might be startled by the tangled, naked orgy of messy-haired dolls on the floor. The dolls wind up taking second place to the accessories (Rebecca’s sweet, tiny menorah that I put next to our grown-up one each Hanukkah; and the movie about Mia and Gwen, that I made an entire slumber party of girls watch at Sophie’s last birthday celebration) but the fact remains that there’s a Jewish American Girl doll — and one for just about every other ethnic group you can think of.

There’s even a tiny wheelchair you can purchase for your American Girl doll, although the clear implication is that it’s designed for a doll with an injury that will heal, rather than someone in it for life.

Still.

It’s not just about marketing. It’s about education, something that only comes when you have a captive audience. For me, this is as much (or more) about a doll that Sophie’s friends will want to own as it is about a doll for her.

I get all the reasons American Girl hasn’t come out with a doll with Down syndrome — it might be awkward to alter features on a doll when they really don’t do much to change up the ethnically diverse ones. AG makes a big deal out of how you can buy a doll that looks just like your kid, but the truth is that they really all look alike. Again, it’s the back story.

I’m not saying it would be easy. I’m saying it would be fantastic — I can’t think of a single thing the toy industry could do to encourage acceptance and education about developmental disabilities at an early age that would have a greater impact.

You want to teach kids (girls, at least) to quit using the word retarded, or never use it in the first place? This is how.

Every time I walk by the playroom, I swear we’ll never buy another American Girl doll. But for this, I’d make an exception. They better hurry up, though, before my girls and their friends outgrow dolls altogether.

The other evening, at bedtime, I was reading Sophie a book called Moo, Baa, La La La, and my eyes landed on a book I had put on her shelf before she was born, the young adult classic A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle. I was suddenly sad, thinking that Sophie probably will never understand one of my favorite stories. — Up the Down Staircase, Phoenix New Times, November 25, 2004

So, guess what book Sophie brought home from the school library the other day?

“Look Mommy!” she bellowed, running at me with it as soon as I came through the door. She knows it’s one of my favorites.

Sophie is exceeding expectations, and not only mine.

Last week we crammed into a conference room — Sophie’s teacher, her aide, her therapists, the principal, the fifth grade teacher, our lawyer, their lawyer and the district’s special education director since the lawyers were there — for the latest IEP meeting.

“Ask hard questions,” I told our lawyer before we walked in. “Find out how she’s really doing.”

So she asked. The answers:

Sophie’s reading comprehension is at grade level.

Sophie can multiply double digits.

Sophie has lots of friends and plays with the other kids — in fact, the teacher said, the other kids seek her out.

And then the teacher said something that  made me tear up. I wrote it down on the pad of paper I’d brought along.

“Sophie is a typical fourth grader.”

Don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry I told myself, hiding behind my Diet Coke.

(After the meeting, the principal — the one who shares Sophie’s birthday and wears purple once a week for her and contributed more constructive, creative ideas during that meeting than I heard his predecessor attempt in the previous f0ur years’ worth of meetings — gave me a hug. A hug. We only have a year left at this school. Then we’re screwed and I’m not sure a lawyer can fix it. But that’s a different blog post.)

Later I asked Ray, “Hey, don’t you want to know how the IEP meeting went?”

“Sure, how’d it go?”

“The teacher said Sophie is a typical fourth grader!!!” I beamed, waiting for a response.

Ray laughed. And like that I felt myself sink back to earth, like the tea party scene in Mary Poppins.

“She’s not typical in any way,” he said, walking out of the room.

Of course Sophie’s not typical. I know that. We spent much of that IEP meeting discussing her impossible handwriting, her hard-to-understand speech, her struggles with subtraction. At one point the lawyer flipped through Sophie’s standardized test scores and I sucked wind, noticing single digits in the “percentile” column.

But she’s holding her own in a fourth grade classroom. Yes, it takes a team of people that would overflow a minivan to make that happen, but it’s supposed to take a village, right?

And she brought home A Wrinkle in Time. I need to get the library’s copy back soon, but I think I’ll dig up the other copy and try reading it with Sophie. Will she understand it? I don’t know. To be honest, I don’t know that I’ve really ever understood that book.

All I know for sure is that some days it feels like no time has passed since Sophie was born. A wrinkle? Who knows.

I read this piece earlier this month at Lit Lounge, a way cool program sponsored by the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, headed up by the amazing Tania Katan. If you haven’t been, you should go — next month’s line-up includes my friend Laurie Notaro. Go to smoca.org for details and to purchase tickets.

It’s pretty safe to say that I am not Science Girl.

I practically had to be hospitalized on the first day of high school biology, when the teacher shared the news that we’d be dissecting frogs later in the year. Chemistry was no better – unlike my classmates, I had no desire to blow anything up. And something, years before, had literally turned the chemistry teacher blue. He looked like a Smurf. If that’s not enough to scare you off science, I don’t know what is.

My worst encounter with the subject, by far, took place during the eighth grade science fair. That was back in the days before your parents did your homework. Not that my parents did my homework. Nobody did, which explains my grades.

But you couldn’t skip the science fair. It was mandatory. You had to actually show up with one of those tri-fold boards and evidence of an experiment. I decided to test the strength of two different brands of yarn, which has got to be the dumbest idea for a science fair project, ever.

It did mean one of my favorite things in the world — a trip to the craft store. I don’t remember much about the actual science of that science fair project, but I recall standing in Hobby Hut for a really long time, picking out just the right shades of yarn. I think I wound up with that super cool tri-color stuff.

I do also have fuzzy memories of hoisting large buckets of water and trying to get the yarn to break. Turns out, yarn is stronger than you might think.

Total disaster. Such a disaster, in fact, that it drew not only the attention but also the ire of the meanest teacher at Ingleside Middle School, the eighth grade science teacher, Mr. Done.

Mr. Done was a small but fierce man who ungraciously refused to ignore the fact that I didn’t pay attention in his class, and I seriously contemplated suicide to avoid having to deal with Mr. Done and finish that science fair project.

“That’ll teach him!” I’d think as I tossed and turned at night, picturing Mr. Done standing sad and alone at my funeral, while my friends and family sobbed, whispering behind his back, “If only he’d been nicer to Amy about her science fair project.”

So yeah, I’m damaged goods. But aren’t we all?

Turns out, it’s not so hard to avoid science in every day life. I chose my college based on the fact that there was no math requirement and you only had to take these fake, half semester science classes with names like “The Biology of Islands.” Perfect.

I chose a profession where you’re not required, really, to know much about anything (journalism) and married Ray, a guy who’s really into science, which is a big help when you need to decide which kind of light bulbs to buy or why the hot water heater’s not working. Ray’s even taught me a thing or two – like how to find Jupiter in the night sky and what makes Camelback Mountain red.

But there was something neither of us could see in the stars. When the nurses in the maternity ward agreed that it looked like our younger daughter, Sophie, had Down syndrome, Ray ran downstairs to the hospital’s medical library, while I sat in bed and cried. Over the years, he’s tried to explain Trisomy 21 to me a bunch of times, but it’s never really stuck, all those numbers and symbols.

Is chromosome spelled with an m or an n? I can never remember. But one thing he said early on resonated with me.

When Sophie was just a few days old, Ray remarked, “You know, Sophie really shouldn’t be alive. Don’t you realize that every single bit of her is different from every bit of us? It’s a miracle. It’s like she’s our own little science experiment.”

“Oh fuck,” I thought. “Can I do this?”

Turns out, I can, because as you might expect, Sophie quickly went from being a lab rat to a tiny human being. Doctors mended a hole in her heart, therapists taught her to walk and talk. Some days I still stare at her toes and think, “Wow, those toes look so different from the rest of the toes in our house! Science experiment!”

But for the most part, she’s just Sophie.

When she was 4, one of her therapists insisted that Sophie’s fine motor skills were so bad, she’d never write her own name. Sophie’s kindergarten teacher proved that therapist wrong by the end of the first week of school, and her teachers have continued to surprise everyone (including themselves, I think) with what they’re able to teach our kid.

Which is good, since I’d much rather take Sophie to the mall or a museum — or do just about anything with her – than teach her math. Or science.

It works out really well until the second week of January each year, when Sophie comes home with the packet for the school science fair.

The whole thing is strictly voluntary. But after several years, I know not to try to duck out of the science fair. Sophie loves it. She brings that packet home like a new kitten. A kitten I’m expected to keep alive. Over the years, we’ve fallen into a pattern where Ray helps our older daughter, Annabelle, do her science fair project, while I help Sophie.

At first, it wasn’t so bad. The expectations in kindergarten and first grade aren’t high; I got away with a rock collection and one of those magic crystal gardens you leave out wet overnight.

In second grade, Sophie learned how a carousel works; I took her to ride one and interview the people who run it, and a friend of ours built her a carousel out of styrofoam, rubberbands and skewers. Sophie decorated the horses and we glued them on together.

The rules got more complicated in third grade. I looked at the print outs until my eyes crossed. I don’t know what a variable is – and more important, how am I going to figure out how to explain that to Sophie?

I tossed the packet aside. Screw hypotheses and graphs. We were going to learn how to make butter. From scratch.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a lactating goat in Phoenix in January?

I do.

With the deadline for the project looming, I finally settled on some non-lactating goats at the farmers market and convinced a local chef to let us into her kitchen to watch her whip cream into butter. Then we went home and took an empty water bottle, filled it with cream, and Sophie shook it (well, Sophie shook it for about 5 seconds, then I shook it) til we made butter.

I documented the whole thing in photos, had Sophie dictate her “report” and dropped it off at school, feeling rather smug.

A few days later, the babysitter picked up Sophie and the science fair project. I got a text: You’re not going to want to read the judge’s comments on Sophie’s project.

Sophie bombed. Okay, I bombed. The judge was not impressed with the goats or the chef or the fact that we’d actually turned a liquid into a – well, I’m not sure what butter is but it’s different from cream. The judge actually wanted the variables and hypotheses and all that crap.

I vowed that the following year, we’d skip the science fair.

Then Sophie came home with this year’s packet and a big smile. What could I do? Before I knew it, we were in another chef’s kitchen, making marshmallows.

“Just don’t read the judge’s comments this time,” the babysitter suggested.

Good advice.

I took a bunch of pictures – mostly of Sophie holding the digital candy thermometer and looking really scientific – then I went to the store and bought the regulation tri-fold board, and several bags of tiny white marshmallows.

“Hey Sophie,” I said, “We can write out the title of your science fair project in marshmallows! Won’t that be cute? What do you want to call it?”

She thought for a minute.

“Happy Marshmallow Day!”

I imagined that at the science fair. Not good.

Look, here’s the thing: I want more than anything to let Sophie be herself, but if she’s going to be mainstreamed with typical kids her age, she’s got to at least make it on the dart board. She’s got to stop sucking her thumb at school; she can’t hug every stranger she sees; and she can’t call her science fair project “Happy Marshmallow Day.”

We couldn’t do her science fair project Sophie-style – not entirely.

And so I did what any 21st century mom with no self-respect would do. I got on facebook and begged for help.

My friends meant well, but their advice included terms like “bell jar” and “surface tension.” I started to panic.

As luck would have it, I have another friend who also happens to be a science teacher. And she knows Sophie really well.

“Have her do a taste test,” she said. “Store bought versus homemade.”

She showed me how to make a simple bar graph. I took notes. I was ready.

Sophie was thrilled. It was the perfect experiment for a kid who loves to interact with people. I pasted photos on her board, and Sophie wrote “Marshmallows by Sophie” in Sharpie. We typed her “report” together. I drew the bar graph and she colored it in.

We walked into the gym and set up Sophie’s tri-fold board alongside the other fourth grade science fair projects. Two of Sophie’s classmates walked over to check out what she’d done. I asked them about their projects.

“I made electricity,” one girl said.

“I didn’t do a science fair project,” the other said.

OK, so Sophie fell somewhere in the middle. That made me feel pretty good.

A few days later, the judge’s packet came home. Inside was a first place ribbon, and a near perfect score.

At first I was thrilled, then almost immediately skeptical – had one of my Facebook friends from school rigged the judging? Did Sophie really deserve such a high score? Last year I was mad that the judge was too hard on a kid with special needs. Was it the opposite this year? Was the judging dumbed down?

Could I quit overthinking this?

In the end, I had my moment of clarity, brought to me by Sophie herself.

Turns out, she couldn’t care less what place she got in the science fair.

She’s just thrilled that the ribbon is purple – her favorite color.