Everyone needs a poet in her life. My own personal poet doubles as my dear friend Deborah. Every so often, I wake up to a poem she’s left in my inbox. They’re always good; this one is exceptional. I can’t write a poem to save my soul. Well, the occasional limerick. But I’m lucky to have poetry — and poets — in my life.

The Elmos aren’t working. Not so much, not anymore.

At first, they worked so well, it seemed like a miracle. But I knew it wouldn’t last.

Like most souls, Sophie is very interested in a good bribe. I see nothing wrong with that. Positive reinforcement is what it’s all about, as far as I’m concerned. I do it with myself constantly. (Go for that long walk and you can have a double non-fat latte! Do the dishes and I’ll let you read those back issues of Vogue and Elle you’ve been hoarding! Write a paragraph, shop on etsy.com. Organize your bedroom and as a special treat, you might get to see the floor again!)

You get the idea.

The system with Sophie in kindergarten is a little more intricate. A chart was fashioned with velcro and laminated (someday I will blog about laminating, I promise. Short story: I am afraid of the laminating machine) cut outs of Elmos.

Each morning, Sophie works to “earn” 5 Elmos. Same in the afternoon. The rewards vary, to mix it up and keep her interested: Courtney, the latest Wonder Nanny (we have a team of 5 at the moment!) actually purchased and painted a “treasure box” and filled it at the dollar store. Or Sophie can work for chocolate ice cream with Ms. X or on a very special day, a trip to Chuck E. Cheese.

I think her favorite reward, though, is a chance to stay after school and play teacher. And therein might lie some of the problem: Sophie, not unlike her mother, is a control freak.

So it’s no wonder the bribes aren’t working, the ante must be upped. I have one shoe on and one off, in preparation for that latte-earning walk, so this is To Be Continued.

But if anyone has any ideas for a good bribe, send them my way!

Yesterday Ray emailed me a picture from his phone. The subject line: “Ya ain’t gonna believe this…..”

He’s right. Ya ain’t. For a long time now, he’s been taking the girls to the Phoenix Rock Gym. Annabelle scampers to the top of the wall, but for months, Sophie’s been stuck at one move — maybe two. Yesterday he had a breakthrough. Ray swears the following came with just one tiny boost. Scares the crap out of me. But that’s probably because no one took me to the rock gym when I was five.

A couple days ago, the Glo-Worm emerged from the pile. It happens sooner or later with all toys in our house — they show up, poking out from a basket or under the couch. Sophie pressed the worm’s belly, and it a played a song. Instantly, I was in a dark hospital room, pressing that belly and playing that song, soothing a little kid whose chest had just been pried open to expose her heart.

Today is the one-year anniversary of Sophie’s heart surgery. I don’t really think of the other anniversary of the first surgery (she was four months old) since that one didn’t take. A little more than a year ago, on a very hot morning in August, I was turning out of the busy parking lot of Pro’s Ranch Market, balancing a pack of obnoxiously bright cupcakes on the seat next to me, when my cell phone rang.

“Sophie needs open heart surgery again,” Ray said, without pretense. He’d taken her to what had become a routine check up with the cardiologist. Nothing routine this time; Sophie had sprung a leak.

It took a while to get in to see the surgeon (it wasn’t an emergency; Sophie’s got the most common DS heart defect, A/V canal) and by then, we were well into mid-October. The surgeon was kind enought to wait til after Halloween, so Sophie could trick or treat. He’s that kind of guy.

“Do you remember your doctor’s name?” I asked Sophie when I got her up this morning, and told her it was exactly one year since her surgery.

She shook her head.

“Dr. Teodori.”

“Oh! Oh! Dr. Teodori! I love him! I love him so much!” she said, with even more emotion than is typical for Sophie. Dr. Teodori inspires that accross the board, and not just because of his surgical success rate. I’ve never seen such good bedside manner.

And then she started chattering, the thoughts and words barely keeping up with each other. I did hear “apple juice! Apple juice!”

When we talk about the surgery, which really isn’t often, I remind Sophie that when she woke up, those were her first words: apple juice. She takes medicine twice a day to lower her blood pressure. That, and the scars and the big bump of bone on her chest are reminders. So is the appointment we have with the cardiologist next week, for a check up.

There’s nothing routine about those check ups anymore. Never will be again. Sophie was showing no signs at all that there might a problem, last year. So I wonder all the time: Is her heart okay? Why does she need naps when the other kids don’t? Are those bags under her eyes? Are her hands and feet cold; is her circulation bad?

After we got the news that she’d need more surgery, I looked back and realized that for weeks before that, Sophie had been taking my hand and putting it over her heart, when we cuddled. I wonder now if she knew  something the rest of us didn’t.

If she knows anything this time, she’s not saying.

I couldn’t find the Glo-Worm this morning, a gift from our dear friend Sawyer, a fourth grader who walks Sophie from the lunch room to the playground almost every day. But here’s our girl, as she was leaving for school.

I met the most remarkable woman yesterday.

We’d been emailing for weeks (months?) about our daughters. The woman lives in town, friend of a friend of a friend.

My daughter is 5; we found out she had Down syndrome when she was several days old. Still, I remember the time before the diagnosis felt like eternity.

This woman’s situation is worlds apart. She learned her daughter had Down syndrome when she was 3 years old.

You didn’t misread that.

I might have made a quick reference to this after I first learned of it — so forgive my redundancy — but the story is one I can’t stop replaying in my mind.

The baby was born to young parents (unlike me and my “geriatric maternal age” at 36) so there wasn’t the hint of a problem. And Baby Girl was perfectly normal, happy, healthy. But by the time she was 2 and a half, Mom noticed she wasn’t saying much. After months of debate and discussion and doctor visits, the pediatrician finally came up with a brilliant idea: a blood test.

Turns out, Baby Girl (now Little Girl) has a relatively rare form of Down syndrome called mosaicism. I’m not Science Girl, but basically it means that where every one of my Sophie’s cells is affected by Trisomy 21, Little Girl’s got “normal” cells along with the kind you see in Down syndrome.

It manifests differently in every case, but in this one it means that Little Girl looks totally typical. She has curly hair. Her mom was amazed to hear that Sophie’s hair is straight, while Annabelle, Ray and I range from curly to wavy depending on the humidity.

“Yeah, I asked the geneticist about it,” I told her, explaining that people with Down syndrome don’t have curly hair. Almost never. “He looked horrified.” (I don’t blame him; my kid was about to have open heart surgery and I was asking about her hair. Shoot me. I like distractions.)

We had the same geneticist, and I remember at the time we saw him, when Sophie was 3 months old, Ray remarked that the old guy seemed pretty bored. Run of the mill DS has to be the most common thing he sees. Yawn.

“Was he fascinated by your situation?” I asked. Oh yes, Mom replied. He kept them in his office for two hours.

Little Girl is getting all the services Mom can muster; she’s about to start pre-school; Mom and Dad have read the books, done the homework. She has stomach and thyroid issues common to DS. Funny, Sophie doesn’t have either. (Not yet, at least.)

But I wonder how Little Girl will match up with Sophie. All kids are different — and kids with DS are no exception — but I have to admit I’m curious. I want to meet Little Girl.

I had to ask. I leaned across my Bento box, feeling (and I’m sure looking) a little nervous. The topic hadn’t been broached.

“Um, so, in your life, have you ever known anyone with Down syndrome?”

Mom shook her head. Me either, I told her.

“Have you met anyone with it, since, well, you know….”

No. She hasn’t.

I remembered how I felt, and how I still feel. I’ve tested the waters with kids who have DS, but I have to admit that I still haven’t truly forged a relationship with an adult with DS. I keep swearing I will. One of my dozens of unkept New Year’s resolutions this year was to volunteer at the local ARC rec center. It hasn’t happened, and I’d like to say it’s only because I’m busy. But it’s also because I’m scared.

I wondered if Sophie was scary, in a similar way. I know she would be to me, if the tables were turned.

There was nothing else to do. I dove in.

“I think you should meet Sophie,” I said. “I don’t want that to freak you out. I think she’s awesome” (I’d already done quite a bit of bragging) “but I know it’s not the same. I don’t want it to be weird.”

She didn’t hesitate. She wants a play date.

In any case, I think I’ve made a friend.  

We hugged goodbye on Mill Avenue where our paths took us in different directions, and I got into my car, shaking my head. She says she was like a cat stuck over a bathtub, resisting the water, but I didn’t see that in this woman.

All I saw was one brave mom.

Without a doubt, I pulled the shortest straw yesterday — the worst place to be in America last night was the Arizona Biltmore.

Several of us got tipsy on strong cocktails at the last McCain party at the Biltmore resort (where the Reagans once honeymooned and the Hollywood stars hung, a beautiful place designed by Frank Lloyd Wright’s students), the night of Super Tuesday, when John McCain became the GOP’s presumptive nominee for president.

But no one could catch a buzz last night, despite the vodka and gin. Maybe because we had a real assignment — blog about the night in real time — and equipment to juggle: the world’s tiniest laptop and an iPhone with a dying battery.

In the end, we couldn’t even get accurate returns; in Big Brother fashion, they were only announcing the states McCain was winning. The foreign press outnumbered the paying guests. No one had a clue.

And worst of all was the feeling that I was there to kick a dying dog.

I wasn’t. Really. But I have written about McCain for a long time — none of it particularly positive — and while I wasn’t there to gloat, I don’t blame anyone for thinking I was.

Actually, all day, I’d been feeling downright magnanimous, in that way you get when you have a strong feeling your candidate is going to win, so why not be gracious? I was thinking a lot about partisanship. Funny, I put up a post Monday night about the notion of people with developmental disabilities voting, and while that drew some response, I heard more reaction to a couple of tossed off lines about my husband Ray’s political affiliation.

I’ve long joked that if you grow up in Phoenix, you better not count Republicans out as friends or you’ll be darn lonely.

And it’s true that some of my best friends are Republicans (not Republican Jews so much, I can never get past that one, though I did see a hilarous yarmulke last night wiht “McCippah” embroidered on it) and certainly some colleagues, even at the allegedly ultra-liberal alt weekly Phoenix New Times where I’ve worked forever.

But a GOP soulmate? My mom jokes that they knew I was in love when I brought home a Republican gun owner/former Catholic. I still don’t love the guns (which are safely locked away, trust me, and no, in 10 plus years of marriage I still haven’t held one) but I do love the Republican, and sometimes I even love him for his views.

I don’t agree with those views much of the time, but yesterday, as I fielded comments from people saying things like, “I just couldn’t be married to my husband if he didn’t support the same candidate I did,” I thought hard about why I was okay with that. (With the possible exception of the McCain thing, and really, that’s different — it’s personal, the guy screamed at my dad. Not cool. Long story. Google “David Grann” and “New Republic” and “Silverman” if you really must know.)

Even though we might differ on the issues — and trust me, on a given day it can be everything from economic policies abroad to whether the girls should still drink from sippy cups — Ray and I completely agree on one thing: We want the best world for our kids. We might have different ways of getting there, but isn’t that the messy manifestation of the American Dream?

I was getting all touchy feely and happy about my mature perspective, as we squeezed toward the lawn of the Arizona Biltmore last night to catch McCain’s concession. That was a surprise — we never thought we’d get into the ballroom, let alone onto the lawn, and the crowd was both disappointed and anxious, wondering if any of us would make it past the metal detectors in time to catch the senator’s parting words.

I was practicing my dour face, dying to hear more details about Obama returns and wishing I was at a victory party instead of a wake — and a wake for a man I was sick of hearing about long before Super Tuesday — when I overheard a woman next to me talking loudly into her cell phone, clearly not caring at all who heard her.

“Yeah, well, maybe he’ll be assassinated in a couple of days,” she said.

There was no doubt about whom she was referring to.

It was her tone — hopeful and bitter at the same time — that stopped me cold. I turned and stared hard at her. She didn’t look back, just pushed past me toward the metal detectors. Soon we all made it through and onto the lawn, for the final few paragraphs of McCain’s speech.

He was downright gracious, the crowd was in tears, the moment was perfect and lovely and afterward people smoked cigars in the cool November night.

We opened the tiniest laptop in the world and posted some pictures, then got a cab and beat it out of there. I couldn’t stop thinking about that woman. I didn’t see her face. But how will I ever forget her?

To quote Sophie, “I’m scared.”

Can people with Down syndrome vote?

That has got to be the worst question I’ve asked since Sophie was born. The second worst: When Sophie was three months old — and about to have open heart surgery — I asked the geneticist whether people with Down syndrome ever have curly hair. (He gave me a dirty look and said no. In any case, I have since noticed some people with DS who DO have curly hair, although it’s true that Ray, Annabelle and I have wavy/curly hair and Sophie’s is the stick-straight stuff I’ve always dreamed of for myself.)

She was in her PJs tonight, about to brush teeth, when I stopped her to ask, “Who do you want to be president?” We had been practicing with Annabelle, earlier in the evening. As I said to Ray this morning, I really don’t care about any other choice on the ballot — it’s a free country, as they say — but I can’t live in the same house with someone who votes for John McCain. Total dealbreaker.

Instead of scoffing, Ray nodded solemnly and agreed that familiarity does indeed breed contempt. (I’ve covered McCain for a long time: www.phoenixnewtimes.com/mccain, in case you really want to read even more about the guy. Which I doubt. I know I don’t.)

Annabelle, Sophie and I were giggling over how funny “Obama” sounds and I remembered that I forgot to order “My Mama’s For Obama” tee shirts. As a journalist I’m technically not supposed to share my affiliation, but screw it, I don’t pretend to be unbiased. I already have a good luck charm around my neck that says Obama; I’ll have to turn it around tomorrow night, when I’m covering the McCain rally in Phoenix. (Just color commentary – and to balance things, I’ll be there with our paper’s arch-conservative.)

Anyhow, I asked Sophie who she wants to be president and she yelled, “ABBIE!”

Which is pretty much what she yells in response to most any question, these days. She’s obsessed with our 13 year old pal. It was a completely appropriate response for a 5 year old, with Down syndrome or not, which is why I don’t know understand why the question suddenly popped into my head.

“Will Sophie be able to vote?”

As a one-time political reporter and current citizen of the world, I should know the basics of the Voting Rights Act, not to mention the Constitution, but shoot me — I don’t. Or I did and forgot. In any case, I had to ask Ray.

He smirked. “There’s no IQ test to qualify to vote!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

But of course I had to Google. It took a while to find the answer, amidst all that really smart talk (not) about who’s more retarded — McCain or Obama, Republicans or Democrats, and don’t get me started on the commentary about Sarah Palin.

Finally, I found it. As always, Ray was right. No, there’s no qualification. You just have to be a U.S. citizen and of age. But I wonder how hard that would stick, if challenged. Many states have specifics written into the statutes that stipulate that people with developmental disabilities must be allowed to vote. There’s got to be a reason.

Oh, and by the way, Arizona has no such stipulation. Neither does Alaska.

I sat and thought hard about it. What do I really think? Should anyone, regardless of mental capacity, be allowed to vote? I pushed all the political jokes out of my head and forced myself to be honest. And my honest answer is that I don’t know. I really don’t.

If I had to guess today, I’d say that Sophie is darn well on her way to knowing just what’s up, by the time she’s 18 if not before.

But can I imagine (indeed, have I encountered) adults who are clearly not capable of discerning between the two people at the top of the ticket, let alone below? Yeah. I can.

And yet they clearly deserve the right to vote, if only because of the slippery-slope factor. The potential ramifications, taken to the nth degree, are too horrible to imagine.

Hey, I don’t know a soul who understands everything on that ballot I’ll face tomorrow, myself included. (OK, maybe Ray. Probably Ray.) Two of my smartest friends begged me for pointers, which I in turn had to beg for from my father — then temper with a big grain of the-guy’s-a-public-utility-exec salt.

In any case, Sophie’s already the best judge of character I know. And that’s what I’m basing my vote on tomorrow. Aren’t you?

I was really excited for Halloween this year, and not just for the usual reasons. I couldn’t wait for the Kindergarten Halloween Festival and, finally, a chance to spy.

It’s a tradition at the girls’ school. (The festival, not the spying.) Every Halloween, all the kindergarteners — and only the kindergarteners — parade through the school in their costumes. Cutest thing ever. Then they gather in the cafeteria for the morning, where sevearl stations are set up with carnival-like activities: story telling, cookie decorating, pin-the-smile-on-the-jack o’ lantern. That kind of thing.

I signed up immediately as a helper for the morning. It was my first real look at Sophie in action, amongst her peers. I’ve banned myself from her classroom, which kills me. Not that I have so many hours to volunteer, but I’ve always managed some lurking time in Annabelle’s classroom. It’s good for her to see me around, and even better for me to see what’s up in the space my kid occupies for such a big hunk of her life.

Last year when Annabelle was in first grade I got an eyeful of just how much time some teachers spend texting (hey, it was a new boyfriend, cut her some slack) and got to organize someone else’s supply closet — which for some reason is infinitely easier than organizing any of my own crap. This year I’m in absolute awe of Mrs. Z and her Smart Board (google it if you’ve never heard of one — amazing) and her ability to keep just enough control over a group of 7 year olds to get them to work without feeling like they’re working.

And while I’m grading homework, I get to keep tabs on the kids’ social lives. I admit that’s the best part.

But I’ve never gotten to hang with Sophie’s class. In pre-school, parents were pretty much banned from the classroom. At first I was really upset, but Sophie’s wonderful teacher promised she’d be a different kid with Mommy around. “We’ll videotape her if you want,” she said. I was allowed to come at Hanukkah, and the teacher was right: Sophie spent the whole time showing off for me and disrupting the group.

Lesson learned, sadly, so I’ve stayed away from kindergarten. I’m lucky because Ms. X keeps me posted on classroom activities and Sophie’s ups and downs. But as I stood with Sophie the other day before school, I realized I know very few of the kids in her class. Several of the girls, yes, but not many by name, and the only boy I recognized was the one who came to school on Picture Day with both ears pierced. (He’s memorable, and also a good friend to Sophie.)

The Kindergarten Festival went well, although I got stuck at the math station — not my strong suit. OK, I admit it’s not like it was algebra. The kids made patterns with construction paper pumpkins, ghosts and bats. Still, it was stressful, and partly because I was afraid of what I would see. Would the other kids  leave Sophie in the dust?

Let’s say I was pleasantly horrified. I’d figured she’d emerge as the slowest, but as I got to see each kid complete (or not) an activity that required a bit of concentration and effort, I realized that Sophie’s hardly at the bottom of the pile.

I’m not deluding myself, trust me. Well, maybe I am, but not entirely. Last week the “Clifford Journal” came home — the kids are allowed to take home a stuffed Clifford the Big Red Dog to play with, then asked to write about the “visit” in the journal.

My eyes welled up as I flipped through the book. Many kids had drawn fairly intricate portraits of Clifford engaged in activities around the house, along with several well-constructed sentences describing the visit.

Sophie wrote her name in her Sophie way, and drew a, well, a more rudimentary picture than the others in the journal. She dictated her description of the visit to me, which I dutifully wrote, verbatim:

“Don’t feel bad,” Ms. X said when I mentioned it. “I’ve watched parents dictate to their kids. They don’t come up with that stuff themselves.”

But even that wouldn’t have worked with Sophie. She still has trouble forming the letters to more than her name, dictated or not.

So I was nervous as I set out glue sticks and paper cut outs. And yeah, I saw my share of whiz kids. But what surprised me was how many kids were completely unable to do the simple task at my station. Although patterns are a big thing in kindergarten — the precursor to math and all that, something that has no doubt been covered to death by three months into the school year – some children stared blankly when faced with the task. A few couldn’t figure out how to rub the glue stick on the back of the paper, or how to get the finished product into the brown bag they were carrying around.

By the end of the morning, I’d decided several things:

I will never, ever teach elementary school.

Sophie’s doing just fine in kindergarten.

And she looked damn cute in her Cookie Monster costume.

After months (literally) of preparation, Halloween was a blur. My main goal each year is to nail the perfect picture of the girls in the their costumes, and til this year I’ve even managed to convince them to dress as coordinating characters (angel/devil; two black cats; vampire and bat).

This year all bets were off. We had Cookie Monster and a “white vampire cat” and I didn’t get a single decent shot.

I also managed to lose the white ears/tail I bought Annabelle weeks ago, forgot to paint whiskers on her face and botched the blood in the corner of her mouth.

Sophie spent most of the holiday in her panties, as it was well over 90 degrees on Halloween day, and the Cookie Monster costume was head to toe fur.

And yet, it was by far the most successful Halloween ever. Now if I can just get all that damn candy corn out of the house before I eat it.

One of the things that no one tells you is that carving pumpkins is really freaking hard.

Tonight my friend Kathy stopped by to say hi — after two margaritas — and pretty darn perfectly carved Barack Obama’s profile in a pumpkin. Damn her. My stars were almost impossible, and Sophie’s pumpkin is a mess.

Poor Sophie. I wouldn’t let any 5-year-old wield one of those carving things (Ray thinks they should be recalled, given how easily the blades break off. And they’re sharp). But definitely not Sophes. I did let her draw on her pumpkin after I was done taking her directions.

I knew what she’d say when I asked, “Round eyes, or triangles?”

“FABULOUS,” she replied.

She first said it last week, sitting with Ms. X, making a paper pumpkin puppet on a stick.

“Sophie, how do you want the eyes? Do you want round, triangles, what?”

“FABULOUS.”

And so on for the nose, the mouth. Ms. X did better with paper; my pumpkin features were anything but fab. I can’t carve eyelashes. Sophie didn’t seem to mind. Annabelle was pleased with her pumpkin, as well. But the hit of the night, I’ve got to say, was my accidental chalkboard pumpkins.