We've seen a lot of family lately, and both my sister and my sister-in-law have children just about Marilee's age. Recently, as Marilee barreled down the stairs and refused to sit in a high chair and drank out of an open cup and said, "I want backpack!" and stumbled around with ...

My husband and I found out that our daughter Penny had Down syndrome two hours after she was born, and we shared the same instinct. We wanted to run away. Within minutes, I had the route planned out from the hospital room to my grandparents' summer cottage, three hours north, ...

A few months ago, Parents Magazine and CNN hosted a joint luncheon with an array of moms in order to talk about the upcoming election. As a part of my new gig blogging about the election with parents.com, I had a chance to meet some awesome women and participate in a two-hour ...

Recently, William has become obsessed with money. I think it started when he received twenty dollars for his birthday, which prompted a trip to the toy store where he got to purchase something that he selected. He's been on a quest for more money ever since. He scoured the car ...

We moved to our new, temporary, home two weeks ago. We will move again next week into a more permanent temporary spot. The final move is slated for February.

That much I knew ahead of time.

What I didn't know was that we were moving to a place without a phone line and where cell ...

Before going to seminary and then having children, I worked in youth ministry with teenagers for five years. As such, I sat through countless systematic presentations of the gospel in which someone was assigned "the sin talk." These talks varied from camp to camp and speaker ...

We moved yesterday, so I don't have much time to write, but I wanted to urge you all to pray.  A young girl who is reported to have Down syndrome has been arrested in Pakistan for allegedly burning pages of the Koran. Here is the email I received from the National Down Syndrome ...

"What in Jesus name mean, Mom?" Penny asked after I had prayed for her the other night.

I more or less say, "In Jesus Name, Amen" to conclude every prayer. And I had a vague memory of asking myself what exactly those words mean a long time ago. But when Penny asked me, I was ...

Earlier this summer, I wrote a post about summer camp. What I didn't mention is that camp came on the heels of Penny being denied Extended School Year services by our local town. She was denied because we only live here in the summer. I scrambled to find a camp that would take ...

I don't usually write about writing, but I am a member of the Redbud Writer's Guild, and I submitted a post for their blog, which is all about writing. Here's the beginning, with a link to the Redbud blog, where you'll find countless other posts about writing if you're so inclined... ...

For every pregnant woman, a baby remains a hypothetical being for a long time. Even once that baby is born, parents don't know whether she will love music, whether that straight hair will all fall out or turn curly or change color, whether he will fight with his siblings, whether ...

I have a new post at parents.com, "Why Aren't Obama and Romney Talking About Abortion?"

It begins:

My kids love to hear stories about when they were born. They know the quirky details—that Penny was easy to push out, that I threw up on the way to thehospital with William, that ...

Sometime later this week my third post with parents.com about the election will run. My job is to represent the middle way, the moderates, the people who might just vote for a Republican or a Democrat. People like me. And so perhaps it comes as no surprise that I find the arguments ...

I was headed to a wedding out of town last week, so I asked my online friend Stephanie Meredith to offer a guest post about resources for women with a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome. Stephanie is the author of the booklet created by Lettercase.org, which was prepared with ...

It seems somewhat out-of-keeping with the tone of the summer, with barbecues and laughter and fireflies and staying up later than usual and sandy feet and hydrangeas, but all summer long, in the midst of the delightful moments, I have also been thinking about how easily those ...