Jack's Scalp Massage
Everybody Loves a Scalp Massage As you know, Jack loves baseball, football, basketball, or basically anything else with a referee. That being the case, Amy took him to Sports Clips to get…
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Special Needs Adoption
If You Can’t get Your Priorities Straight, you Don’t Know JACK!
The first time I saw him, he was so frail. He was only a month old and his heart was so busy pumping blood through holes between its chambers that it was…
How to Fix Your Child With a Magic Wand
My oldest daughter hadn’t been home from Russia for a month before we noticed her pointing pencils or other objects at us while contorting her eyes and face. Emily had come from…
Adopting a Child with Down Syndrome: Winning in Vegas
Our family was so wrong. We thought that adopting a child with Down syndrome would be about what we could do for him. The error of thinking like that was one of the first of…
Rare and Precious Moments when Intellectual Disabilities Fade
Annie just before her Junior Prom I hadn’t realized that the song had been on continuous repeat for the better part of an hour. I had been reliving a perfect moment in…
Mental Illness Is Like Other Illness
Amy and I have three biological children and six adopted ones in our family. Parenting that many children should clue you in on the fact that there is some mental illness in the home, if…
A World Without Bullies
As Seen in Huffington Post I was always the second or third child from the left on the front row of class pictures in elementary school. I was never the shortest in…
Down Syndrome doesn't Mean Something's Wrong
Down syndrome doesn't mean something's wrong. Jack is now eighteen. We adopted him when he was just one-month old. As with a large percentage of other children born with Down syndrome,…
The Family and Me
I’m John Simmons and this is my family. On the back row we have Steve, Emily and Cory. Middle row: Holly, Amy, me, Sarah and Annie. The front row has Mike, Celeste,…