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.

Friday, December 28, 2012

Watching for Whales

Sorry this post is a little late. I uploaded all of the pictures, and then forgot to finish. You see, it's just that our schedule is so busy out here. :) Kidding. It isn't.

For those of you who knew me in Minot, you may remember my strange obsession with finding a moose. Well, it is no different here in Hawaii, only searching for whales is way more fun! It is officially whale season, and we are determined to see one. Apparently, the best place to see them is on a hike up to a lighthouse. It's actually perfect because it is a paved path, so the stroller can make it. Notice I only said stroller. It might kill one of us pushing the dang thing up the mountain. The views are absolutely breathtaking.





When we are not busy climbing up the side of a mountain, we love to just hang out at the beach. On the southwest side of the island are some man-made lagoons, which stop the waves. Luke is in love. In fact, one day it started raining and the wind was blowing like crazy, and I had to drag my screaming/kicking child out of the ocean. Glad he got over his fear.




If you look very closely, you will notice that Claire is actually showing off her Christmas present! She wanted a pair of diamonds to match her mommy's, and of course, daddy said yes!!
Christmas pictures to come soon...if I can find time in our schedule....

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