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 17, 2012

Happy Father's Day!!!


 Happy Father's Day!!! Patrick and the kiddos had an excellent day together! First, the kiddos let us sleep until 9:00. By that time Luke had had enough fun playing in his bed and reading books to himself. So, we brought him into our room to watch cartoons while sleeping beauty stayed in bed a bit longer. Luke loves to snuggle on weekend mornings, and today was extra special since he got to give Daddy the gifts he made in school. Patrick and I decided that one of the best thing about Goldman are the awesome keepsake gifts they make. Neither of us are crafty enough to capture finger/hand/footprints on cute little art projects, but thank goodness for his awesome teachers!!

After Daddy opened his gifts from Luke (He and I went out to a nice dinner Friday to celebrate Father's Day, his new job on base, and my new job), it was time to get baby sister out of bed. She wasn't too happy about being in a group photo, but she did enjoy sitting in her Bumbo for the first time! Her head control is getting much stronger; however, she thought it was too much work after just a few minutes. Luckily, Luke was there to hold her while she rested!!!





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