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, June 12, 2011

Grandpa and Grandma's Housse




Sorry we've been away from the blog for so long! Luke and I took a little two week vacation back to Kansas. Turns out, I am pretty sure I have the best job in the universe. Northwest Pipe has another facility in Atchison, KS, which is only about 45 minutes from my parents' house in Topeka.  My division was holding a meeting, and luckily my boss didn't care that Luke bummed a ride on my lap on the airplane ride home. To top it off, I managed to schedule a trip I needed to make to our Vancouver, WA office immediately after my Kansas meeting.  That way, Luke could spend several days with Grandpa and Grandma Malone!

The timing couldn't have been more perfect because it was Crazy Uncle Mike's 22nd b-day, and it was the week before he left for Ireland! The Lucky Duck is studying abroad in Dublin for the summer and working for a marketing company....maybe I need his job....

Luke LOVED his time in Kansas. Each day, Grandma spoiled him rotten! Grandpa's friends, Mike and Holly, finally had the chance to meet Luke as well. Holly works with kids with special needs, so it was great to hear her advice about Luke. Of course, he enjoyed the attention, so he and Holly became fast friends.

Now, we're finally back together as a family in Shreveport. It was great to see the family, the work meetings went well, and being back in Kansas was awesome, but it sure felt good to get home.

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