God Bless America!!!

February 19, 2008

God Bless America!!!

The kids and I made it back to the US without incident yesterday afternoon. It was a very long travel day, but all in all the kids did a great job. We are having a rough time adjusting to the new time, but hopefully in a few days we will be back on schedule. (The 2am wake up this morning was interesting.) We had breakfast at our favorite little PA diner this morning with my Nana. It was wonderful. Oliver is napping and Waverly is watching Cinderella. I can't believe she is not tired!! Wavey's doctor appointment is on Thursday. We are very excited to meet the doctor and have lunch at Chipotle (her favorite restaurant).

Comments

debby s. said…

A 2 AM wake up time probably seemed reasonable if you body says it's 7 AM or so. I bet that adjustment could take a few days. Glad to hear Waverly likes Chipotle. Me too! Maybe if you guys make it to Columbus at some point, we can go to Chipotle, as there's one very close to us. OR, we could go to North Star for the veggie burger!

February 22, 2008 at 1:46 PM

Welcome to Holland

By Emily Perl Kingsley

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.