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.

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Naked in the fridge

Why is it that the laws of the universe dictate that kids must suddenly need parental supervision the second you get on the phone?

Case in point:

Late Friday afternoon, I was on a call for work  after our nanny was already gone for the day. Luke was nicely playing on the iPad, Claire was playing with a toy, and Aubrey was asleep. Of course, as soon as I answered my phone, it was like I had turned on a giant magnet for 6-year-olds, and Luke was immediately at the door signaling that he had to potty (why do all my stories start like this?!?)

I waved him off, heard the toilet, and then the patter of his feet running back to the living room.  Success! So, I continued my call until I started hearing, "Help!" and then some other muffled word. I gave it a few minutes, but of course it didn't stop because I was still on my call. So, I walked into the other room to find Luke inside the refrigerator....naked......trying to get a glass of milk. Apparently, his trip to the bathroom made him thirsty and putting his pants back on was just a little too much effort.

"Help. Mom. Cold!"

Yep. If you climb into a refrigerator while naked, you will get cold. Lesson learned.

Don't tell me we haven't had an educational summer vacation.


Luke always tries to help supervise his sisters....fully clothed and without a glass of milk.





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