Recap

November 12, 2008

Recap

Sorry for the quietness on the blog. We were in Ohio visiting Matt's family. After a very long drive and a special stop in Columbus to see some dear old friends, we made it home late last night. It was a nice trip. We were able to see Matt's parents, his brother & sister and their families and some old friends.

Now we will settle back into our routine. Taking Waverly out of her environment and schedule always causes some frustration. She was incredibly hyper - more than we have seen her in a long time - the past 2 days. I am hoping that being back in our apartment and attending school will help calm her down. She was up at 4:45am though. I think today is going to be a long day.

Tonight my best friends, Kamarah & Michele, are flying in for a visit. I have been counting down the days until their arrival for months! I am so excited to have them enter our little world and get to know the kids. I will feel even more understood when they see how drastically our lives have changed.

So today is going to be filled with cleaning, shopping, baking and preparing for guests. It is going to be a wonderful 5 days. (Thanks to Lisandro and Ryan for working out your schedules so they can come visit!!) It is a wonderful day.

Comments

Unknown said…

i pray your time will be blessed with Kamarah & Michele!! there is nothing better than spending time with dear friends!! enjoy!

November 12, 2008 at 7:59 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.