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, August 1, 2010

Just Another Weekend

First, the weekend started with an outing on the boat. We've hardly been able to use it due to our crazy schedules and the sweltering temperatures, but Saturday morning was perfect!
Then, we were super hungry, and nothing sounded better than a yummy sandwich at Which Wich?, one of our favorite restaurants.




Luke was hungry too, but his bottle sounded MUCH better than a meatball sub. Check out his newest skill of holding his bottle! He struggles with the giant heavy bottles, but he has no trouble with the little five ounce bottles that we have. He was super sleepy during this bottle, so the holding didn't last long. We'll make sure to lift weights this week.


Notice that there is a new outfit in this picture. Luke decided that his bottle at lunchtime was sssoooo delicious that it needed to come out of his diaper right after eating. Go figure that we didn't have any extra outfits with us!

Later that night, Luke and Daddy had Boys' Night Out and went to see Ironman 2.  Daddy was a little worried at first because Luke started crying during the previews.  However, Luke was just trying to say that he wanted a snack during the movie. After a quick bottle, Luke was sound asleep. Guess he'll have to watch the movie on Netflix.

 While the boys had their man time, I went out to Painting with a Twist with my friends, Suzi and Laura. Basically, the idea is that you paint while drinking wine. The goal is to drink enough so your painting looks fabulous. Luckily, this picture is tiny, so the paintings still look beautiful. None of us should quit our day jobs anytime soon :)



Whew! We are worn out! Daddy managed to escape work early tonight, so after a nice walk it was time for a bottle and bed. It's another busy week ahead, which hopefully means time will go quickly because Grandpa and Grandma Godinez get here next weekend! Luke is counting down the days!








1 comment:

  1. AnonymousAugust 2, 2010 at 11:58 AM

    He is growing so much! And such a little cutie! Looks like you guys had a great weekend... I can't wait to start enjoying them with our little Miss here in a few weeks.=)

    Blessings,
    Stephanie and Jonathan

    ReplyDelete

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