The Book is Here!

Dear Star in Her Eye Readers, Eight years ago, this very month of July, I started a blog. I named it “Star in Her Eye,” because the baby I was raising had a five-pointed star in the bright blue iris …

The Scrappy Picture Schedule Might Save Us — Parenting in a Pandemic

Our worlds have been thrown upside down. Or at least sideways. Definitely more than slantways.  I’m sitting at my desk, watching a neighbor walk swiftly passed my house in a black puffy jacket. She’s holding her phone horizontal like it’s …

Respect the Intelligences of Kids with Intellectual Disabilities

Adults do this to Fiona all the time. They do it to her more than they do it to my other, typically developing kid. These kinds of recall questions aren’t genuine requests for information. “Fiona, are you hungry?…. What was your favorite part of today?…. Did anything today make you angry?” Instead, these are questions in which the questioner possesses the right answer and is waiting for Fiona to dole it out.

On Riding a Shuttle with a Dictator-Apologist, or How to Be an Activist Without a Blood-Sugar Crash

Here’s a story of my fallibility and my fear, and my figuring out how I might become a halfway-decent ally. At 4:30am this morning, I sat in a hotel shuttle, waiting to head to an airport. With my backpack on …

We Need To Talk About These #MeToos

A few months after the #metoo movement shocked not one single woman (because nearly all of us) but perhaps a handful of men, NPR released a year-long investigation on a less reported category of #metoos. It’s a subject you don’t want to …

The 100th Post, a Book Announcement

This is the 100th post at Star in Her Eye, so WordPress tells me. Five years ago when I started this blog, it wasn’t with some grand plan in mind. It wasn’t to do what the publishing industry folks call, …

What We’ve Been Writing

Fiona and I have been busy writing, but not blog posts. She’s been writing sentences in kindergarten. I’ve been sorting out a book-project, but I’ve also been writing essays and such that come out in fragmented messes, require many drafts, …

My Kid’s Doing Awesome and It’s Not (Just) Because of Me

This past week, Fiona came home from kindergarten with the usual notes from her teachers, explaining her day. When I read one note, I envisioned party-style confetti raining down on me. It said, She identified all 26 letters of the …

Blogging in Post-Election America

On Valentine’s Day, while I was stirring chili and scrolling through the day’s headlines on my laptop, a comment popped up from a Star in Her Eye reader: “We miss you,” she wrote, “and want to hear from you.” I’m …

Tumbling in America

After some hesitation and a brief “will she be welcomed?” conversation with the teacher, I sign Fiona and her sister up for Pre-K Tumbling class. Fiona is a walking, miniature willow tree. Her limbs are thin. Her gait is unstable. …