Blonde-haired, Blue-eyed Adventures

From March 1999 to July 2001, I wrote a series of stories for my daughter. They were eight short tales of the adventures of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed little girl, each written after the adventure and shared with her. The last was written after she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, shortly before her ninth birthday.

For years, I’ve wanted to collect them into a book, and I finally sat down and did that last month. A photo/sketch accompanies each story, and the book closes with a bedtime poem that I wrote following her diagnosis. The photo on the front cover is of Alyssa at her first Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation “Walk to Cure Diabetes,” in 2002. I even managed to finish it before her wedding, which is in two weeks. I gave it to her this month for her birthday, and she loves it. And, I’m a…