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.Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Monday, July 4, 2011
Best 4th EVER!!!
After a busy day at school, Luke couldn't wait to get out to the lake. Unfortunately, it was so ridiculously hot that we had to wait until late Friday evening. However, our picnic dinner and sunset cruise as a family was really fun. It was so much fun that we went out all day Sunday.....and Monday :) We spent the ENTIRE Weekend out there because the weather was just perfect. LOTS of friends came out to swim with us, including the Carlson's who are down house shopping. Luke's favorite new toy in the world is his new raft. It has a little mesh ring/diaper to hold him up in the water, and and inflatable ring around the edge keeps his head above water. It is even complete with a little baby canopy to keep the sun out. Luke actually took his nap IN THE FLOATIE while everyone swam.
When we weren't at the lake, we were out partying at BBQs in the hood. On Saturday night there was a huge block party with a 3-story high waterslide. Yes, you read that correctly. It was AWESOME; however, Baby Luke was still a bit too small for the ride. He was the hit of the party and made lots of new friends! In fact, he helped mommy and daddy meet people in the hood that we hadn't met yet, but who are really fun to hang out with. These parties in the Tib (Our neighborhood is Tiburon, fondly called "The Tib") are starting to get out of control!
And speaking of parties in the Tib, we topped the weekend off with a little BBQ of our own. Check out the last picture below. Luke was so tired from his other social engagements over the weekend that he didn't even stay awake for his own party. It's a rough life, but someone has gotta do it!