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.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Chillaxin' Weekend

I remember the days when a good weekend meant spending as much time as I could out with friends doing crazy things like drinking and dancing. While those days are still fun, a fabulous weekend now involves relaxing at home, grilling out with neighbors, and a nice afternoon nap. This weekend was just that. Patrick is back in town and enjoying his last bit of time before Weapons School completely consumes his life. Plus, school hasn't started up for me yet, so we savored the relaxation. In fact, we decided it was a good time to test out a babysitter since we didn't have anything to pressing. My coworker's daughter is 20, and she LOVES babies....we have a baby...so...PERFECT MATCH!!!! It was a success, and we're sure Shannon will be spending many hours at our house over the next few years. I'd like to report that we did something wildly exciting, but nope, no can do. We grabbed lunch and went to Sam's Club to stock up the house. While it didn't rank high on my list of romantic outings, it was nice to spend an afternoon shopping without having to worry about feeding or dirty diapers.

I'm sad to report that the camera is still having technical difficulties. The technician is still at work on the case. LOTS of pics to come when it is repaired. Until then...

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