A Bit of a Recap

A Bit of a Recap

It has been a long hot July, but we have managed to stay cool. The kids have spent 2 weeks at Jill's House for day camps thus far this summer. The rest of the time has been spent at home. We bought a few new pieces of equipment, especially for repositioning Waverly so she isn't in the same few chairs all day long. I found this swing online and thought it would be a nice item to add to our collection. It has a much larger footprint than I was expecting, however the kids seem to enjoy hanging out in it as seen below.

We also attended at party at Jill's House to celebrate 500,000 hours of respite provided since they opened their doors about 6 years ago. There was an ice cream truck (Oliver's favorite part of the night), BBQ, bouncy castles, therapy dogs and a pony. Oliver even reached out to show Teddy some love. As many of you know, Jill's House is very special to our family. We were thrilled to celebrate such a huge accomplishment with them.

I also took Waverly to the National Theater to see The BFG. We saw the production last year and it was so superb, I just had to take her to see it in a larger venue. We had a fantastic time. She thought the BFG was quite silly and watched the entire performance with a smile on her face.

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.