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.Monday, August 20, 2012
School Days x2!
We've been letting him walk around the house more and more without his braces, and he seemed to be much more stable. Last week we tried out a birthday party in regular sandals, and Luke rocked the sans socks and braces look. Today, he did awesome at school, so we'll get the final approval to ditch the things when we see Anita on Wednesday.
Now, I have to confess: I did not get a report from his teachers about his walking success - I watched him at recess from my office window!!!!! There I was diligently working on a project when I heard kiddos yelling outside my window. I peeked out to the playground across the street, and there was Luke running (in his T-Rex-like awkward run) with all of the big kids at recess. Did I mention that I LOVE that my office window faces school? Luke did fall down quite a bit on the slanted playground that is covered in grass, but that had more to do with bad genetics from his mom rather than his missing leg braces!
After I watched Luke finish playing and go inside for lunch, I started to feel bad that I didn't see Claire. So, I grabbed my office keys and headed out the door. I peeked my head quietly into her room, and she was sound asleep - or so I thought. As soon as I started talking those big, blue eyes popped right open and stared at me. Busted. It was probably for the best because then we got some snuggle time in before I had to get back to work.
Overall, both kiddos had a good report. Luke needs to work on our routine for dropping sister off, and Claire needs to get used to her teachers a bit more. Soon she'll love school just as much as her big brother. And one of these days I'll remember to take a picture of both kids!
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