Waverly's Weeknight Adventure

November 30, 2011

Waverly's Weeknight Adventure

(It is blog catch up day.)

Last Monday, Waverly spent the night at Jill's House. They are working to partner with local schools to provide week night respite for families. There are a few children at Waverly's school who are registered with JH, so Monday night was a trial run for her school. It was a bit of a last minute thing, so only a handful of kids were there. Wavey once again had a wonderful time. She had a lot of attention from the staff, went swimming, watched a movie, played in the gym. She was all smiles when we dropped her off and all smiles when I picked her up the next morning. I am so incredibly thankful to Jill's House for the work they do for families in the community. And we are so blessed to have them close by - a definite plus to remaining in the DC area.

While Waverly was at JH, Matt & I took Oliver out for dinner to Chipotle. Oliver loves their chips. I loved being out with the men in my life.

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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.