They have been my surprise silver lining in 2017, Facebook posts from a guy I barely know about a baby I've never met. Words and photos that gripped me from the start, that made me hope and gave me hope, and that continue, every day, to make me smile.
Read MoreI wanted to be like my grandmother. So I wrote out stories for my grandchildren, short, rhyming "Good Night" stories. Later, I decided to publish them. I would write some letters. I would make some phone calls. I would not give up. I would get this done. This is what I told myself. I wrote one letter. And got some great advice about structure and how to tell a better story. Then I went on line for the next step and learned that it can take up to five years to have a children's book published. Five years? I didn’t want to wait five years. Now it is six years later…
Read MoreShe was born nine years ago on June 20, and it was the best of times and the worst of times.
Lucy's being here was what we had prayed for, what we had begged for. But not exactly. Because she was not the child we had imagined.
Read MoreIn the end, after a few hours, a few months, I dismiss these things. Chalk them up, as Ebenezer Scrooge did, to ``an undigested piece of beef.'' The butterfly that shadowed me the day after my father died. The bird that found a crack in a window and flew into my house after my mother died. Messengers, at first. But in time, simply a butterfly, simply a bird.
Read MoreJudith Melisi has been on a mission for more than a year now. But last June it became personal.
For months the Halifax mother had been trying to alert the owners of the health club where she works out to the dangers she saw in the child-care room. Candy that little ones could choke on brought in by older kids. Hot coffee brought in by a worker. The bathroom door left open. An electric outlet exposed.
Read MoreA few months ago, my daughter Julie was worried about her daughter, Charlotte, who, though almost 2, wasn't talking.
"Charlotte points and says 'unk.' It's the only thing she says. She calls everything 'unk,'” she told her pediatrician. He nodded his head…
Read MoreShe wasn't the prettiest child in the room, because they were all the prettiest, babies still, not one of them over 3, flawless skin, bright eyes, shy, sweet smiles. But my daughter and I were drawn to this particular baby because she reminded us of Lucy, my daughter's little girl, with her sweet round face and her light wispy hair and the thin pale line on her breastbone that told us she had had heart surgery, too.
Read MoreThis is what I tell myself as I watch a man not watch his child: Cut him some slack. Don't be judgmental. Maybe this is the one time of the week when he gets to sit and relax and read a newspaper.
Maybe the child in the pool playing by himself isn't even his. Maybe this middle-aged man is merely a friend of the boy's mother, keeping her company, doing her a favor, simply hanging out and not responsible for the boy in any way.
Read MoreI can’t stop thinking about my friend Jill’s new grandson. I look at his photo and smile. I speak his name - Chase Henry – just to say it. And I tell people – neighbors, friends, people at the gym, strangers in line at the deli - about this little boy, whom no one has met yet, but who is already, totally loved. “It isn’t official, but here’s our baby BOY!” Jill’s daughter e-mailed. The phone call she’d been waiting for had finally come. After years that felt like decades, Tara and her husband Rob are at long last parents-in-waiting.
Read MoreLucy is my first grandbaby, and her song just came. I didn't expect it, so I didn't go looking for it. It found me.
I was singing all the time back then, when my first daughter was pregnant. "You Are The Sunshine of My Life" and "My Special Angel." "You'll Never Know Just How Much I Love You" and, of course, "Baby Love."
The baby wasn't even close to being born, but I was already head over heels in love. And people in love are known to do some strange things, like walk on clouds and burst into song.
Read MoreWhen I brush my granddaughter Lucy's hair and put it in a ponytail, I always kiss the back of her neck. And she giggles. She is 3. She talks. She dances. She goes to school. She plays house and tea, and kick ball and follow the leader. She loves books and Bambi and church and playing with her cousin Adam. Lucy has Down syndrome. She looks and acts more like a 2-year-old than a 3-year-old. But is this so awful? Don't we say, "Children grow up too fast"? Lucy isn't growing up too fast. She's taking her time.
Read MoreYou try to teach them the eternals, that life is good, and people are kind, and nothing is so bad that you can't get through it. And most days you believe this. But then you replay history, or you watch the news, or you pick up a paper and see the face of yet another person maimed, killed, robbed, blown up, beaten, kidnapped, raped, sick and dying, and you think you're selling your kids a pack of lies.
Read MoreWith the puppy, it was simply a matter of carrying her outside, plunking her on the grass, and letting her do her thing. She was 6 weeks old when we got her and was house-trained in a few weeks. No "how-to" books. No "Ten steps to housebreaking your pooch." And absolutely no guilt that she was too young to introduce to the backyard, or that our approach might cause her irreparable psychological harm.
Read MoreNo hurt was intended. In fact, the young woman from the modeling agency was apologetic. In New York, it's different, she said. In New York, babies with special needs model for lots of companies. Boston just isn't there yet.
I didn't expect that Lucy would be chosen. I just didn't expect that she wouldn't be given a chance solely because she has Down syndrome.
Read MoreIt hurts her parents. It hurts me. And it will hurt her someday.
The way our society deals with differences. The way her being, her existence, is a thing that scientists and doctors are working to prevent. My granddaughter, Lucy, has Down syndrome. This isn't a tragedy. But the world in which we live acts as if it is.
Read MoreWe walked four-and-a-half miles the day before he was born. We didn't intend to walk this far. But city blocks go by fast because they're crowded with people and things, and before we knew it my daughter and I were sitting on a bench in Central Park, tired but not exhausted, though she should have been. But she was pumped then, and ready to burst like the forsythia and magnolia trees with their buds. Like the daffodils and the hyacinth, like all the unfurling things, she and they partners in creation, waiting for the sun, for warmth, for time, for whatever it is that coaxes new life into being. Waiting and waiting and waiting. `
Read MoreShe wanted me to see the closet. “It’s so cute, Mom,” she said. “Scott did it.” Scott, the husband and hero, still. The guy who turned a patch of floor into a kitchen. The guy who figured out that if you moved the bed this way and coaxed the dresser that way, you could fit – not a crib – but a Pack-and-Play into the corner of their bedroom. The guy who transformed what…
Read MoreShe wanted me to see the closet. "It's so cute, Mom," she said. "Scott did it." Scott, the husband and hero, still. The guy who turned a patch of floor into a kitchen. The guy who figured out that if you moved the bed this way and coaxed the dresser that way, you could fit - not a crib - but a Pack-and-Play into the corner of their bedroom. The guy who transformed what amounts to a tall spice cabinet into a perfect little niche.
baby clothes
Read MoreHer mother bought her the bee costume. She found it at Old Navy. It's a plush, sturdy thing, which, hanging on a rack even without a face, resembled a giant bee. But put a baby in it and it was a bee for sure. "An angry bee," her mother said, though Lucy looked anything but angry. Perplexed, maybe. Curious. (Why is everyone going "bzzz bzzz"?) But definitely not angry.
The costume has two layers. The bottom is a brown snuggly sleeper, and the top - the bee part - is yellow and brown and BIG…
Read MoreSometimes I pretend I'm her mother. That's OK, isn't it? Sometimes, when I'm walking my granddaughter all over town, I look up and see how much the town has changed in 35 years and how much I have changed, too…
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