Perspectives from Holland: 3 Months!!!

"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.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

3 Months!!!

Baby girl turned three months today!!! It's hard to believe that twelve weeks ago we were sitting in the hospital waiting on test results to see if anything was actually wrong with Claire. Today, she is a happy, healthy, RAPIDLY growing little girl. In fact, I have been worried if something was wrong because she LOVES to sleep!! The doctor reassured me at her appointment last week that she just needs lots of energy for all that growing she is doing. Plus, here is everything else she has been up to lately....

Finally! Some time to hang out with Daddy! He has been working 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. for the past week, so we really haven't seen him much lately. Got to get in some snuggle time before he leaves Monday for a trip to Washington state.

Luke got jealous that Daddy was getting all the snuggle time, so he wanted his turn too. Notice that Ralphie took full advantage of Patrick's open arms.

The other day we went to playgroup and Claire's friend, Kira, was there. The girls are only 5 weeks apart, and although they don't look like it in this picture, they are good friends. Apparently, it was either poop of food time when I tried to take this picture.

After playgroup the other day, Claire couldn't wait for Luke to come home from school so she could tell him all about her day.

And you can tell Luke was happy to hear she had so much fun.

Then she watched Luke, Ralphie, and Daddy wrestle on the floor for a bit. She decided it was too dangerous to join in the fun....someday soon though....

One of our favorite things to do it to watch big brother at OT every week. Today he was working on arm strength and various motions so he practiced cutting the toy pizza. Then, he and Anita worked on "in" and "out" by putting the pizza in the pan and taking it out to pretend eat it.

Mommy's favorite game is these colored pegs. Luke has to figure out which bolt goes on which peg, and he is getting really good at it! After four correct ones in a row he apparently decided he was done though because you can see him giving the sign for "all done".

No, he is not bleeding. Luke loves ketchup. Blame it on Grandma. She gave us the idea to let him dip food in ketchup one night on her last visit when he wouldn't eat. Fast forward to tonight and the pork tenderloin just wasn't cutting it for Luke. Well, give a pile of ketchup to dip it in, and he devoured every single bite....and then some.

While Mommy gave Luke a bath, Claire and Daddy watched a little tv together. When Luke got out of the tub, he dressed himself; however, he only remembered his hat.