Merry Christmas!!

December 25, 2012

Merry Christmas!!

Christmas has been a very difficult holiday for me since Waverly & Oliver were diagnosed almost 5 years ago. This year I was finally able to put aside all of my expectations and just relax. Christmas Eve was just like any other night, except we had a delicious evening of appetizers. Christmas morning we all piled into our bed and watched cartoons under the covers. I made some yummy monkey bread for breakfast. Instead of trying to get the kids interested in wrapped presents under the tree, I unboxed the few gifts and had them out ready for play in the family room. We ended the day hosting my cousin and her family for dinner.

The kids are nestled all snug in their beds. The puppy is snoring on the kitchen floor. I keep smiling. Christmas never looks like the movie version. And our Christmas day was much different than all of my facebook friends' walls filled with photos of kids tearing into presents. Yet we were all together. That is what matters.

Comments

Kathryn said…

Merry Christmas!!!!!!!

December 29, 2012 at 5:41 PM

PK said…

A late Merry Christmas to you! You have such a great attitude and perspective on life. It sounds like that great attitude enabled your family to enjoy a wonderful day together.

December 31, 2012 at 5:27 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.