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“Mom, that’s the perfect speed, are you going slower for me?” Ellie calls from behind me as we are going on a bike ride. “No, this is the perfect speed for me too babes, this way we can be really careful when we cross the streets.” Ellie learned to ride her bike without training wheels …

“I thought you said you lived in a small town.” “It is a small town.”  I replied “No, this is a city, right there on that sign it says there are over 400,000 people living here.” My husband Andy – then just my boyfriend – had traveled with us to Mexico to visit family. “Believe …

They glowered at me. They whispered. Some spat their disapproving words. Although I did not understand their language, I knew why they criticized me. Strapped to me with a long piece of frayed white cloth, my almost four-year-old daughter hung awkwardly on my body. She seemed too old to be carried, and my “baby wearing” …

Sweat drenched my back under a heavy winter coat; a weighty and over-sized backpack hung on my back, a child was strapped on my front, and I tightly gripped a large suitcase. Amidst morning breath and a hint of coffee, a crowd of Ukrainians yelled furiously around me at the Lufthansa service-window where we all …

Dear Nichole, When you came into my life, your diagnosis of Down syndrome threatened to crush my heart. That tiny extra 21st chromosome seemed too powerful for me to stand up against. I cried constantly, and I feared our lives would be covered with limitations. I wanted to wake up and find that you were …

What I love about the writing prompt community is the feedback I get from all of you. This is not  my writing prompt, it belong to all the great writers/bloggers that come here to write together and share their stories of hope, heartache, and lessons learned. Two weeks ago, we had the first writing prompt …

My youngest daughter had surgery last week. We are still going through the recovery process, so I spend most of my day keeping up with her pain meds and making her comfortable. This means that I have not kept on top of the writing prompt really well the last few weeks, so I got creative, …

Strong willed children. I have one of those. Nichole –my daughter with Down syndrome – knows what she wants, when she wants it, how she wants it. She has no problem yelling at me, “No mom!” “Stop it!” “No way!” As hard as it is to understand her speech, those words are perfectly clear. Sometimes, …

I walk as quickly as I can, looking down most of time, making sure not to make eye contact. It is obvious I am foreigner. It is not that I am a Latin woman walking alone in the streets of Kiev that sets me apart, it is the fact that I wear a stocking hat, …

Sometimes, I think back to the days when I had only one child – more specifically – a typically developing child. Life was easy back then. There were no acronyms to learn, no difficult medical issues to understand, and no membership to the “special parents” club. Life was easy, and my kid was smart, beautiful, …