My parents and I recently attended a National Philanthropy Day breakfast with a group of staff from Turnstone, our local center for people with disabilities and their families. I’ve been a client at Turnstone since I was 3 years old, and I have started…
I was recently strolling through the best-sellers section of a bookstore and couldn’t remember the last time I had set foot in one. I had just stopped in for the Starbucks coffee. However, while my personal care assistant ran to the bathroom, I decided to peruse the book display near…
Our third baby, Jeffrey, shook things up from the moment the nurse at the doctor’s office exclaimed, “You’re pregnant! You’re very pregnant!” She seemed exceptionally delighted to announce the confirmation. Although my husband, Randy, and I were shocked at the news of having a newborn in middle age, there…
The holidays are upon us. In our house, Christmas starts the day after Thanksgiving. The house gets decorated, winter candles are lit, and Christmas music fills the rooms. The kids are old enough to help decorate. The dogs even have Christmas bandanas around their necks. Our…
At the beginning of November, I got sick. It was inevitable, though I had received a flu shot and we were careful. Sometimes you just get a little unlucky. Usually when this happens, I give it a couple of days to see how I’m doing. If…
If you’ve been on social media lately, you’ve probably seen a flood of posts with the hashtag #10yearchallenge. This trend, popular on sites such as Instagram and Facebook, prompts users to post a picture of themselves from 2009 next to one from 2019.
Life can be full of disappointments. They are opportunities for children to learn how to handle them, think about them, and react to them. Ella rolled into the Young Naperville Singers rehearsal full of excitement and anxiety. The week before, she had auditioned for…
Everything in our lives is difficult, from the things we need to do to survive to the things that we love to do. That doesn’t mean we live a bad life. I’ve been reading some columns on SMA News Today recently for inspiration and…
Just a couple of years ago, I knew little to nothing about cystic fibrosis (CF), a genetic disease that affects approximately 30,000 people in the United States alone. My perspective is wildly different now that I have friends and co-workers with CF. I’ve learned…
Life is typically made up of occasional, seemingly random thuds. Thuds are moments when we sit up and take notice. We don’t usually know what we’re noticing, but there is no mistake that thuds are significant. The first thud, as it relates to this story, occurred when my…
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