Perspectives from Holland: Week 2: Pacific Adventures

"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.

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Week 2: Pacific Adventures

This week our schedules were jam-packed! While Patrick attended a conference in the Philippines, the kiddos and I stayed VERY busy :)

First, we spent considerable time sun bathing at the beach.

Occasionally, we took a little time to a little baby exercise and played patty-cake with Claire's feet.

Our real adventure was visiting the Children's Museum, which was AWESOME!! Luke made lots of new friends.

And they even had areas for babies to play!

But, all that excitement wore us out.

So we took some naps on the beach in the afternoons (don't worry - we slept under our beach umbrella).

A few afternoons it was too rainy for the beach, so we just played in our hotel. Claire realized she could rock a cute ponytail to calm her crazy curls!

It seemed shameful to spend time in our room when we were in such a fun place, so we decided to go explore the outlet mall that is only 20 minutes from us. I'm sure they had great deals, but Luke wasn't too interested in letting me shop. I thought giving him a break from the stroller might be a good idea. It wasn't.

On of my favorite things to do is just drive around the island. This picture just doesn't do it justice.

When the good weather finally returned, we headed for another day at the beach. Notice the trend that our favorite thing to do here is sleep. Claire drank too much and passed out for a few hours. She was just trying to be like Crazy Uncle Mike. :)

All that rest paid off because she spent that evening playing with her favorite frog doll. He sings the ABCs, and she can't stop giggling while he sings.

Now that Claire is getting more animated, Luke loves to play with her. It is hysterical to watch him try to entertain her, and one of these days I will capture some good pictures. For now, it is easier to capture when they finally wear each other out!