Our Babies

Our Babies
Luke and Claire

"Welcome to Holland"


By Emily Perl Kingsley, 1987. All rights reserved.


I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away...because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss. But...if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

My Mom Leaves Us Again

Hello dear friends. It's Patrick jotting down a few notes. The last few days have been pretty eventful! My mom, how has been with us since Thursday, left today to go back home and tend to her store. This was her second time with us. She was here when Luke was born and is back to help us get adjusted to a kid in our house. I think she believed that Luke is in good hands...even if we argue about when to feed him and give him his Mylicon. If that's what we are worried about, then so be it! Anyway, here is a picture of my mom loving on Luke.


Luke got his first bath at home this weekend. Needless to say that he hated it. Big time. That's ok, because he was a dirty little boy. Here is me trying to figure out what is going on...

She was lots of help especially for two recovering parents. She loved to hold Luke no matter what his temperament happened to be. She did take my bluetooth charger when she left thinking it was her cellphone charger (T-Mobile doesn't have service in the north side of town!) but it's all good.

So the doggies have taking a liking to all things Luke, even if it's to chew them up. This includes plush toys and pacifiers. But they did get to witness Luke rolling over! Which apparently no one actually believed the the first video I posted, so I had to post the second video. Haters.


Anyway, he is taking anywhere between 2-3 oz bottles. He is feeding a little erratically but that might be because of a growth spurt. We are headed to his one week checkup Weds to make sure everything is in place. Should be uneventful! Hopefully.

Anyway, here is one last shot of the Little Dude being cute. Goodnight friends!

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