Perspectives from Holland: Dancin' Fool!

"Welcome to Holland"

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.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Dancin' Fool!

So, my son has dance fever...

About a month ago, the rhythmically gifted (Black) teachers at his school taught him how to dance. You just do a little beat box (those younger than 40 will know what that is, the rest of you just fake it) and he would bounce up and down! He loved it! Then, he started doing it to actual music or people singing! More recently, he has added a new move. He will rock back and forth too! We thought you would enjoy his audition tape to "Dancing with the Starts!"

Pretty awesome.

In other news, Luke is growing up so fast! He has been transitioning to real food! That means that he is eating what we eat at home and cafeteria food at school! He doesn't even use a crib at school either! They have him napping on a mat. Crazy. His new favorite pastime is reading a bedtime story.