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.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

BUSY past few weeks for a little dude!








Whew! Luke has been a busy little dude! Although the pictures are a bit out of order, Crazy Uncle Mike and his friend, Lisa, came to visit over Labor Day weekend. Our plan was to go hang out on the boat, but of course it rained. No big deal though because we had a great time chilling around the house. Mommy was still pretty tired from Baby CJ, so Crazy Uncle Mike did a good job keeping Luke entertained. Usually they wrestled on the floor, but sometimes, Luke just wanted to snuggle with him on the couch. After he left and Mike called, I would put him on speaker and he would smile and wave to the phone. I think the two of them are going to be dangerous when Luke is older!

The next week it was off to D.C.! My best friend, Jennai, was getting married, and I was matron of honor. It poured and poured when we got to D.C. Poor little Luke had no idea what that stuff falling from the sky was since it has been so long since we've seen it here in Louisiana. Luckily, the weather cleared and we had a beautiful trip. You'll notice the little green froggie in the pictures. Patrick volunteers at a local school, and the frog gets to go on trips with special guests. He got to see all of the monuments in D.C., and apparently, the frog thought it was more exciting than Luke who slept the entire time (no complaining here!).

Jennai's wedding was FABULOUS!!!! It was at a beautiful resort on the water, and the weather was absolutely perfect. Plus, I got to catch up with friends I hadn't seen in a long time, so it was just a great weekend overall.

Then, Patrick had to leave straight from D.C. to head to Arizona to present a paper he wrote. Luke and I headed home to attempt to get into a routine again. Poor little guy couldn't keep his eyes open after his first day back at school and occupational therapy. Thankfully we have some time together here at home as a family before the next trip....

That means more blogs  :)!!!!!!

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