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, March 13, 2011

Relaxing Weekend


After an exciting last weekend of Vegas, ear infections, and daddy meltdowns, this weekend was much calmer.  All three of us managed to be sick throughout the week (I think it was just allergies as everything is coming back to life since the weather is so warm), but we were all better by the weekend. Luke started off his Saturday by staying in bed until 9:00!!! This was great because Patrick and I had LOTS to get done. We just bought a gazebo from some friends moving away, so while Patrick painted it out in the garage, I diligently worked on homework so I could play the rest of the weekend.
 

When Luke finally got up, he was super hungry. Notice the two bottom teeth in the top picture! We decided his hair was getting a bit shaggy again, so we called on Stylist Lindsay, our neighbor, to come assist with haircut #2.  We had the brilliant idea to do it outside so we wouldn't get hair everywhere, so yes, our child is sitting in his bumbo in the bed of the pickup truck! Our goal was a natural, windblown look, and it totally worked! (Basically, we just couldn't figure out how to cut his crazy hair!).
Obviously from this picture, Luke wishes you would have been there to save him.  Despite his trepidation at our approach, his hair turned out beautiful!  Thank goodness we had him looking all snazzy because we finished just in time to make it to his friend Grace's 1st birthday party followed up by a bbq in the hood.

1 comment:

  1. KarenMarch 14, 2011 at 11:40 AM

    OK! A haircut in the bed of a pickup? Can you say "You could be a redneck if..."? Please don't tell me the truck was parked in the middle of the front yard! But, it looks like everyone had a good time, and we can't wait to see the results!

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