Happy 5th Birthday, Hope!
Take a moment to enjoy the beauty of Hope’s fifth year, which has been our true blessing to witness. Happy 5th birthday, Hope!!
Take a moment to enjoy the beauty of Hope’s fifth year, which has been our true blessing to witness. Happy 5th birthday, Hope!!
Hope’s equitable place in this world hinges on your ability to control the urge to return to a time that no longer exists. If you can’t do this for yourself, do it for Hope. I promise, when the time comes, she will reciprocate ten-fold the love you’ve shown her in this moment.
Happy Down Syndrome Awareness Month! We advocate not because we want to, but because we need to. We celebrate because we can. Thank you for celebrating with us this year!
This is the story of a playdate. The playdate. Our children’s first, actual playdate since the term “social distancing” became a mainstay in our vocabularies, a progression from the stay-at-home orders that were put in place in March. This was our one and only playdate of the summer.
Maybe you discover that it really doesn’t matter if your preschooler can tell the difference between a square and a rectangle, considering she conquered the potty and straw drinking on your watch since being home during the COVID-19 outbreak.
This year is a little different: we will celebrate World Down Syndrome Day in isolation, but never alone.
Hope was admitted to the hospital four years ago today, yet this is the first time we’ve had to acknowledge the anniversary, thanks to common years safeguarding the memory since 2016. I’ve long promised the story of her 105-degree fever, so here we go.
Whenever we meet families with older children who have Down syndrome, there is always one common thread among them—they’re calm.
Our dreams are like any other parent’s dreams—we just have to fight a little harder to get there. Thank you for fighting alongside us. For smiling back when our daughter blows you a kiss. For continuing to vote for special needs funding. And for understanding that there is nothing wrong with having Down syndrome.
We throw around words all the time, using hyperbole to force others to understand in the flicker of a moment the feelings we have spent days, months, even years cultivating. We don’t always mean what we say, and parsing language can often be an exercise in futility.