A friend recently gave me a copy of a newspaper article titled, The Girls, by Ann Hood. Hood reminisced about her mother’s loyal group of women friends that for decades, had gathered in one another’s home every Friday night to eat dinner, gossip, and play cards. These women were prickly…

My family’s Thanksgiving feast changes each year as different faces grace the table. People move away, pass away, get married, and age, and squirrelly children become vibrant young adults. For as long as I can remember, my parents have welcomed and embraced anyone who walked through their front door. And…

At my first parent teacher conference of my son’s third-grade year, the special education teacher shuffled papers around her desk for thirty seconds too long. Nervous sweat pricked at my skin and I feared nothing but more problems. “I think we should find something to highlight Andrew’s skills in front…

Share your story with me! I want to know about a time when you relied on someone or something that became your touchstone during a difficult period in your life. Did you have an invisible friend as a child? An animal whom you loved more than anything else? An old…

I have been to Seattle Children’s Hospital so many times with my son that I’ve become weirdly numb to the routine. I watch, detached, as families walk through the doors seeking answers to impossible questions or treatments for an illness that seems to have no name. I’ve been there. I’ve…

Every kid is That kid: Your special someone who’s unique. Still, parents and authors Kristin Jarvis Adams and Nancy Schatz Alton know what it’s like when you have the kid that all the other kids (and parents) wonder about. What’s it like to raise a child with autism who has a life-threatening…

My son dreams of becoming a chef. Spatulas, tongs, measuring cups, a tabletop deep fryer, and a dozen boxes of red velvet cake mix line his bookshelves like an honor guard of mismatched soldiers. His desk is a library of notebooks filled with recipes he gleaned while watching hundreds of…