Welcome to Holland by Emily Perl Kingsley. c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. 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, February 8, 2010

California Dreaming

We had such a good time on our trip!  Mitch did great the whole time and he absolutely LOVED all the rides, the rollercoaster being his favorite!  Major didn't know what to think of it yet but still had a good time... I think it was just a little too much to look at.  Maddock was still traumatized from our trip last year when he just had to ride Atlantis and it was too scary for him so he didn't want to go on any big rides... he even cried on Pirates!  He just stayed on the little kid rides but he had a lot of fun!  It was a little cold there this time and we got rained on the last day but I'll take that over snow any day!  We had almost all of Will's family there and my parents were there also.  It was great being able to spend time with both of them... I wish I had more time with my parents since we don't get to see them very often anymore but I was happy to have been able to spend the week there with them.  We would spend the days at the parks with Will's family and then go home and be up late at night talking and laughing with my parents!  We had the best of both worlds!  What a FUN trip! 

This was our day at Sea World
cheese!
Dancing in the street with Grandma!
The seals are always a fav with us!
This was our day at the Wild Animal Park which is about 10 minutes away from my parents house... very convenient!
Madd and the Giraffes
Major and the Rhinos
They got this Cheetah out right in front of us!
Major loves to sit at the table with Grandpa and eat nuts
This was our day at Disneyland
Uh Oh!  Will found the TNT!
Maddock LOVED these rockets!
Me and Maj on the rocket!
Maj and uncle Matt and aunt Maegen
A much needed day of rest!
there is always time to wrestle!
Little Mitch is tired from the week long adventure!
The boys eating pistachios with Grandpa
Mitch is trying to warm up by the fireplace
Posted by Courtney at 10:34 AM

1 comment:

  1. The WalkersFebruary 8, 2010 at 12:46 PM

    It looks like you had SO much fun! I'm really happy you got to go and get a little break from sickness and winter. You have got to have THE CUTEST little boys in the entire world! Oh! I just love their stinkin guts! Love ya Court.

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