June 2013

A Good and Perfect Gift on Audible (and Other Fun News)

For those of you who prefer listening to books to reading them (or for your friends in this camp), you can now pre-order A Good and Perfect Gift as an Audiobook. It will be released next Tuesday. I haven't heard the whole recording yet, but I listened to the sample and she did ...

A Trip to the Zoo, or Why Inclusion MattersWe went to the zoo. It was a simple, lovely day (only made possible by Penny's inclusion in a regular first grade classroom).

A few weeks ago, I accompanied Penny's class on a field trip to the zoo. We piled onto the school bus with its high-backed seats and bumpy ride and we cracked the windows to let some cool air flow in. I was responsible for Penny and two other little girls as we strolled the ...

A Day in the Life of Penny Becker (or One Way to Help Women with a Prenatal Diagnosis of Down syndrome)A day in the life of Penny Becker, or why you should buy something from Sevenly this week.

Let me just share our day today as an example of life for a family with a child with Down syndrome. I awoke to all three kids at 7:30 (we're on vacation). Penny stood at the side of the bed, glasses askew, hair poking up, lips puckered for a kiss. She spent the following hour ...

Three Tips for a Healthy MarriageThree practical, weekly things we do to keep our marriage as healthy as possible...

We celebrated our fourteenth anniversary a few weeks ago. Peter took me out to a lovely dinner. We each drank a glass of champagne and toasted the gift of this relationship. We talked about the surprises of the past decade or so, and we spent some time thinking about what we've ...

Tweets This Week

For your reading pleasure this weekend:

 "What Happens to #Women Who Are Denied #Abortions?" http://ow.ly/m19Xi @nytimes #TurnAways

"My #LifeIsForeverChanged because of one night, one decision and one monumental lack of understanding." http://ow.ly/m41NO@emmasaylor

"My brother ...

My Dreams for Penny, and Other TopicsTalking with George Estreich about family and education and what dreams we have for Penny and what dreams she has for herself.

Today's post includes my final installment of answers to George Estreich's questions. These center around family and education. And I'll mention here that the drawing to win a free copy of George's memoir, The Shape of the Eye, will happen on Friday, so comment on my interview ...

Why Bother to Write About Prenatal Testing?

A continuation of my conversation with George Estreich:

George Estreich: In both your book and on your blog, I've been struck by your wish to take on difficult subjects relating to Down syndrome, prenatal diagnosis and abortion among them. A few questions:

–Can you talk ...

Why I WriteOn why I write, the authors who mean the most to me, and why stories matter.

Last week, I posted two series of questions for George Estreich, author of The Shape of the Eye (A Doorway to New Life and Questions for George Estreich). Not only did George craft thoughtful answers to my questions, but he also returned with a series of his own questions about ...

Don't You Care If We Drown?In the midst of a raging storm, "The disciples wanted Jesus to pitch in, to do his part in solving the crisis. But Jesus had other things in mind altogether." It's true in my life as well.

A few years ago, I came to a totally new understanding of a passage from the Bible in Mark 4 when Jesus falls asleep in a boat and his disciples wake him up when a storm comes. I wrote about it then, but it has been reposted on Not-Alone.org (a site I recommend for anyone who ...

Tweets This Week: Disability, Muslim Abortion, Inclusion, and the Only and the Lonely

So my plan going forward is to offer a post every Friday that includes articles I've tweeted this week. I know I did this on Tuesday of this week, but from now on, Fridays are the plan. As it happens, this week I also had an interview on WordFM. Here's the corresponding tweet ...

What Prenatal Testing Has to Do with the Church (and Other Religious Communities)"Even though I was an active member of our local church, it hadn’t crossed my mind to discuss the prospect of testing with anyone there. I saw prenatal testing as a routine medical aspect of pregnancy rather than a series of decisions that require wisdom and humility and bring up questions about suffering and goodness and meaning."

I have a new essay on the Washington Post's "On Faith" blog. It begins:

Every pregnant woman has decisions to make about prenatal genetic testing, and it's not as simple as sticking out your arm for a blood draw.

According to the American Congress of ...

Do Medical Textbooks Intentionally Offer Outdated Descriptions of Down Syndrome? and Other Questions for George Estreich"Medicine is part of culture, and so culture, good and bad, is refracted through medicine." George Estreich on medical ethics, culture, and inclusion, among other things.

Yesterday I began a conversation with George Estreich, author of The Shape of the Eye, about writing and family and Down syndrome. Today, the interview continues as George writes about medical ethics, culture, and inclusion, among other things:

When I wrote A Good and Perfect ...

"A Doorway to a New Life": A Conversation with George Estreich About Down Syndrome, Writing, and the Stories that Make a FamilyIs Down syndrome "bad" or "hard"? George Estreich reflects on writing, family, and life with his daughter Laura.

As I wrote earlier this week, George Estreich's The Shape of the Eye is a lovely memoir of a father who is telling and retelling the story of his family after his second daughter Laura has been diagnosed with Down syndrome. Yes, this book will be of interest to parents of ...

Worth ReadingA smattering of articles worth reading

I read a lot, and I often read articles I'd like to comment upon but then I just don't get a chance. So I've started tweeting things I read that might be of interest to my followers (if you're on Twitter, you can follow me @amyjuliabecker), and I figured you all might be interested ...

Quoting George Estreich on Family, Down Syndrome, and How we Tell Our StoriesMy favorite passages from George Estreich's The Shape of the Eye, on family, Down syndrome, and how we tell our stories.

Nearly two years ago, I wrote a glowing review/reflection on a book that was new in hardcover by a writer named George Estreich. It's the story of a little girl with Down syndrome growing up with her stay-at-home dad, her mom, and her older sister. It's also a story about families ...

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