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.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Big Boy

My baby is all grown up, and I just don't know how I feel about this!!!

 He wears his glasses all the time now....

And sits on the potty.....

 And washes himself after a day of playing in the dirt....

 And checks himself out in the mirror.....

 And brushes those teeth real good....

 And wipes his face when he's done...

 All done!

 Look how cute that naked little boy is!

While he was getting ready for bed, Daddy was busy transforming his crib into a toddler bed.

 Poor Luke didn't quite know what to think at first.

 But then Daddy read a book with him, and everything was okay.

 
He didn't even care that it was his first night in a big boy bed. I think I might cry.....

Next blog: Luke's not the only one getting big :(

2 comments:

  1. KarenAugust 3, 2012 at 6:37 PM

    Luke may be getting big, but he will always be my sweet baby boy! He looks so cute in these pictures. Claire will learn to love him despite his over zealous squeezes and bonks on the head!

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  2. The ScottsAugust 4, 2012 at 3:19 PM

    Yay for the toddler bed-what a handsome big boy! And now you need to teach him to kiss himself in the mirror-that's what Callie does after she checks herself out;)

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