Good Week

February 05, 2009

Good Week

It has been a good week for us. We are back in to the swing of a regular school week - no snow days or inservice days. Yeah! Waverly has had a really good week. Her teacher said that the past 2 days she has been especially attentive and participating in some new activities in the classroom. I am so proud of her. Her teacher is reporting that she is continuing to stumble more often. We were able to get in with our physical medicine doctor next week (thanks to a call from our geneticist). I am anxious to see what we can do to correct her right foot that is turning in and causing her to fall more often. Oliver has been really into his Thomas the Trains we got him for Christmas. He loves it when we build the track and he can sit inside of the oval and push the trains around. He especially loves the bridges. It is really cute watching him play with such attentiveness.

I was able to meet with a friend of mine from London who now lives in VA. We got together with our boys and talked while they played. She loves my kids so much and has been through this journey with me. It was such a treat to be with a friend. I don't have a lot of friends here locally, so the time with her meant so much.

I have also been so thankful for the other Sanfilippo moms who have been such an incredible source of friendship, encouragement and knowledge. I seriously do not know how I could go on without their support. I am so excited for the opportunity to meet them and their lovely kids.

Comments

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.